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READINGS FROM 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 



A TEXTBOOK 
FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 



BY 

MARY EDWARDS CALHOUN 

ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL OF THE LEETE SCHOOL 

AND 

EMMA LEONORA MacALARNEY 

TEACHER OF ENGLISH, HORACE MANN HIGH SCHOOL 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 






COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY 
MARY EDWARDS CALHOUN AND EMMA LEONORA MacALARNEY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
315-3 



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(,1NN AND COMPANY- I'KO- 
PKIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



APR I 1915 

(S)CI.A398164 



PREFACE 

That this volume of " Readings from American Literature " 
was made because of a real need is, perhaps, its first and best 
excuse for being. The editors found in their own classrooms 
the demand for a compact anthology, ranging in time from 
colonial days to the present and adapted to the high-school 
student and the college undergraduate. Because of this they have 
essayed a task, not simple in itself, but simplified to a degree, in 
their case, by experience in teaching the material presented here. 

It is happily a fact that to-day we are not neglectful in the 
school curriculum of a historical survey of American literature. 
Better still, we link such study with history proper in a natural 
correlation that vitalizes both. But to read about an author is not 
enough ; we must read his works — all of which is trite, but so 
true that it may be said safely many times. Not all schools are 
so fortunate as to have adequate and extensive reference shelves. 
Nor do home and town libraries meet all requirements. Few 
collections, however well selected, supply much material prior to 
Irving. And even when reference reading is practicable, the de- 
sirability of a text for classroom study is still obvious. With this 
by way of explanation, not apology, the editors are content. 

Thanks are gratefully extended to all who have helped to make 
the book — to the boys and girls whose frank expressions of inter- 
est or boredom have shown us what appeals to younger readers ; 
to the fellow teachers who have advised from their experience ; 
to the publishers who have made adequate selection possible. If 
there are any lingering regrets, and what compiler ever saw in his 
book a true compendium of his desires, it is that the number of 
selections could not be more generous. We are sorry not to be 
able to include any of Mark Twain, and we wish that our excerpts 



iv READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

from Bret Harte and from Thomas Bailey Aldrich were not so 
few in number. The book, however, is fairly comprehensive. 

Especially do we acknowledge our indebtedness to many pub- 
lishers for permission to use material still in copyright — to 
Houghton Mifflin Company for selections from the early New Eng- 
land poets and from Harte, Aldrich, Sill, Warner, and Stedman ; 
to Charles Scribner's Sons for Sidney Lanier and Eugene Field ; to 
the B. F. Johnson Publishing Co. for Henry Timrod ; to Lothrop, 
Lee & Shepard Co. for Paul Hamilton Hayne ; to Mr. Horace 
Traubel for Walt Whitman ; to the Whitaker & Ray-Wiggin Co. 
for Joaquin Miller ; to Little, Brown, and Company for Emily 
Dickinson ; and to The Bobbs-Merrill Company for James 

Whitcomb Riley. 

MARY E. CALHOUN 
EMMA L. MacALARNEY 



CONTENTS 



COLONIAL PERIOD 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH ^^^^ 

A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as hath 

happened in Virginia etc i 

Powhatan's Reception of Smith i 

General History of Virginia 3 

The Pocahontas Story 3 

The Capture of Pocahontas 5 

WILLIAM BRADFORD 

The History " Of Plymouth Plantation " 8 

The Pilgrims leave Leyden 8 

The Compact of the Pilgrims 11 

Early Trials of the Pilgrim Fathers 12 

Christmas Pastimes 14 

MOURT'S RELATION 

Youthful Exuberance on the " Mayflower " 15 

Exploring Cape Cod 15 

The Landing of the Pilgrims 16 

Indian Courtesies 17 

JOHN WINTHROP 

History of New England 18 

An Election in the Colonial Times 18 

Items covering Period from 1631-1648 19 

Letters of John Winthrop and his Third Wife, Margaret 23 

JOHN COTTON 

A Defense of Persecution 25 

Poem on the Reverend Thomas Hooker 27 

V 



vi READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

NATHANIEL WARD 



PAGE 



The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America 28 

Women's Fashions 28 

In Praise of Anne Bradstreet 33 

ANNE BRADSTREET 

The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America 33 

The Prologue 33 

Of the Four Ages of Man 35 

A Love-Letter to her Husband 36 

The Author to her Book 38 

For the Restoration of my Dear Husband from a Burning Ague, June, 

1661 38 

EDWARD JOHNSON 

W^onder-Working Providence 39 

Of the First Preparation of the Merchant Adventurers in the Massa- 
chusetts 39 

Of the First Promotion of Learning in New England 40 

JOHN ELIOT 

A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of the Gospel among the 

Indians in New England 44 

Scandal among the Converts 44 

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH 

The Day of Doom 47 

Introduction : To the Christian Reader 47 

THE BURWELL PAPERS 

History of Bacon and Ingram's Rebellion 51 

Bacon's Death 51 

Bacon's Epitaph, made by his Man 52 

Lovewell's Fight : A Popular Ballad 53 

MARY ROWLANDSON 

Narrative of the Captivity and Restouration of Mrs. Mary Roulandson . . 56 

Attack by Indians 5'^ 

Her Experiences in Captivity 57 



CONTENTS vii 

COTTON MATHER ^^ge 



The Wonders of the Invisible World 



59 



The Origin of Witchcraft in New England en 

Some of the Evidence given at the Witch Trials 6i 

SAMUEL SEW^ALL 

Diary 66 

Discipline at Harvard 66 

Christmas Day in Boston 67 

Notes on the W^itchcraft Trials 67 

Family Discipline 68 

Reflections on Slavery 68 

A Colonial Wedding 68 

A Chief Justice in Search of a Wife 69 

ROBERT BEVERLY 

History and Present State of Virginia 74 

Inhabitants of Virginia 74 

Pastimes in Virginia 76 

Servants and Slaves in Virginia 78 

WILLIAM BYRD 

The History of the Dividing Line 79 

North Carolina Farming 79 

Runaway Slaves in Hiding So 

Conviviality in the Colonies 8i 

A Journey to the Land of Eden 81 

Dentistry in Primitive Days 81 

JONATHAN EDWARDS 

Resolutions formed in Early Life (Extracts) S3 

Extracts from Edwards's Diary 83 

Sarah Pierrepont, afterward his Wife 84 

A Farewell Sermon at Northampton, 1750 (Extracts) 85 

THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER 

Alphabets of 1727 and 1762 SS 

The Dutiful Child's Promises 90 

Verses 90 

Good Children Must 91 

Learn These Four Lines by Heart 91 

The Infant's Grace before and after Meat 91 

Additional Alphabet Verses 91 



viii READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

PAGE 

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

The Almanacs 92 

The Way to Wealth 93 

The Autobiography (Extracts) 100 

His Early Interest in Books 100 

Seeking his Fortune 104 

THOMAS GODFREY 

The Wish no 

Amyntor in 

NATHANIEL EVANS 

Poems on Several Occasions 112 

To May 112 

Ode to my Ingenious Friend, Mr. Thomas Godfrey n4 

JOHN WOOLMAN 

Journal n5 

Chief Events during the Years 1749 to 1753 n5 

SAMUEL ADAMS 

On American Independence — in Philadelphia, August i, 1776 (Extract) . 118 

JAMES OTIS 

On the Writs of Assistance — Before the Superior Court of Massachusetts, 
February, 1761 (Extract) 119 

PATRICK HENRY 

Speech in the Convention of Delegates, March 28, 1775 (Extracts) .... 120 

GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Speech in Congress on his being made Commander-in-Chief, June 16, 1775 123 
Letter to his Wife upon being made Commander-in-Chief of the Army . . 124 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 

Inaugural Address, as President of the United States, March 4, i8ci 

(Extract) 125 

Autobiography 127 

An Anecdote of Dr. Franklin 127 

A Tribute to France 128 



CONTENTS ix 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON ^age 

On the Expediency of Adopting the Federal Constitution — Convention 

of New York, June 24, 1788 (Extracts) 129 

THOMAS PAINE 

Common Sense 130 

On the Separation of Britain and America 130 

Rights of Man 132 

The Foppery of Titles 132 

Liberty Tree 134 

PHILIP FRENEAU 

The Pictures of Columbus 135 

Columbus addresses King Ferdinand 135 

Columbus in Chains 136 

The House of Night 137 

Death's Epitaph 137 

The Indian Burying-Ground 138 

The Wild Honeysuckle 139 

To a Honey Bee 140 

JOHN TRUMBULL 

McFingal. A Modern Epic Poem 141 

Converting a Tory 141 

TIMOTHY DWIGHT 

Columbia 146 

JOEL BARLOW 

The Hasty Pudding 147 

Canto I 147 

St. GEORGE TUCKER 

Days of my Youth 152 

OCCASIONAL POEMS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 

The Battle of the Kegs (Francis Hopkinson) 153 

The Ballad of Nathan Hale 156 

Battle of Trenton 1 58 



X READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ROVALL TYLER 



PAGE 



The Contrast, a Comedy in Five Acts 159 

From the "Advertisement" 159 

Prologue, in Rebuke of the Prevailing Anglomania 160 

Act I, Scene i 161 

CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN 

Wieland; or the Transformation 167 

Wieland's Defence 167 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE 

The Culprit Fay 177 

The Fay's Sentence 177 

The Second Quest 179 

The American Flag 180 

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK 

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake 182 

Marco Bozzaris 183 

WASHINGTON IRVING 

A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker 186 

Governor Wouter Van Twiller 186 

The Sketch Book 190 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 190 

The Alhambra 219 

Interior of the Alhambra 219 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 

The Last of the Mohicans 225 

Chap. XXIII 225 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Thanatopsis 239 

To a Waterfowl 241 

To the Fringed Gentian 242 

The Death of the Flowers 243 

O Fairest of the Rural Maids 244 

Song of Marion's Men 245 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

The Yellow Violet 247 

The Death of Lincoln 248 

Robert of Lincoln 24S 

The Planting of the Apple-Tree 251 

The May Sun Sheds an Amber Light 253 

EDGAR ALLAN POE 

The Raven 254 

Annabel Lee 258 

The Haunted Palace 259 

The Bells 260 

To Helen 264 

To One in Paradise 264 

Israfel 265 

The Coliseum 267 

The Conqueror Worm 268 

The Masque of the Red Death 269 



THE LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

The Bunker Plill Address (Extracts) 276 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The Gettysburg Speech 291 

The Second Inaugural Address 292 

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 

The Conquest of Mexico (Extracts) 294 

Vol. II, Book V, Chap. II 294 

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 

The Rise of the Dutch Republic 301 

Vol. I, Chap. I, Par. 1-15 301 

FRANCIS PARKMAN 

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century 312 

Vol. I, Chap. XVI (Extract) 312 



xii READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON ^^^'^ 

Concord Hymn 316 

The Rhodora 316 

The Humble-bee 317 

Good-bye 319 

Each and All 320 

The Snow-storm 321 

April 322 

Forbearance 323 

Fable 323 

The Enchanter 324 

Woodnotes 324 

Selections 324 

Voluntaries 327 

Self-reliance 328 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

Twice-Told Tales 352 

The Gray Champion 352 

A Rill from the Town-Pump 360 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

A Psalm of Life 366 

The Light of Stars 367 

Footsteps of Angels 368 

Hymn to the Night 370 

The Skeleton in Armor 371 

The Rainy Day 376 

Endymion 376 

Maidenhood 377 

Serenade from "The Spanish Student" 379 

Sleep 380 

Tales of a Wayside Inn 380 

The Birds of Killingworth 380 

King Robert of Sicily 388 

Evangeline. Selections 394 

The Song of Hiawatha 420 

Introduction 420 

Hiawatha's Childhood 423 

The Famine 430 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

Proem to the First Edition of his Collected Works 435 

The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother \}6 



CONTENTS xiii 

PAGE 

Ichabod ^-^g 

Skipper Ireson's Ride ^^o 

The Barefoot Boy ^_^2 

Telling the Bees ^_^c 

In School-Days ^^7 



The Eternal Goodness 
Laus Deo ! .... 



449 
452 



My Triumph ac^ 

My Playmate 456 

Snow-bound. A Winter Idyl 4^8 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Old Ironsides 4S0 

The Last Leaf 481 

The Boys 482 

The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful " One-IIoss Shay " . . . . 484 

The Chambered Nautilus 488 

A Sun-Day Hymn 489 

The Voiceless 490 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table 490 

Chap. II 490 



HENRY THOREAU 
Walden 



507 
507 



Solitude 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

My Love 515 

She Came and Went 517 

To the Dandelion 317 

The First Snow-Fall 519 

Aladdin 520 

Longing 521 

Sonnet 522 

The Biglow Papers 523 

What Mr. Robinson Thinks 523 

The Courtin' 525 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 528 

The Commemoration Ode (July 21, 1865) 539 

Abraham Lincoln. An Essay 551 

WALT WHITMAN 

I Hear America Singing 573 

By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame 574 



xiv READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

PAGE 

O Captain ! My Captain ! 574 

A Sight in Camp in the Day-break Grey and Dim 575 

A Noiseless, Patient Spider 576 

Hush'd be the Camps To-Day 576 

To the Man-of-War-Bird 577 

Come up from the Fields, Father 577 

Darest Thou Now, O Soul 579 

When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd 580 

Selections 5S0 

SIDNEY LANIER 

Song of the Chattahoochee 584 

A Ballad of Trees and the Master 5S6 

The Marshes of Glynn 5S6 



THE LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 

BAYARD TAYLOR 

Bedouin Song 591 

The Song of the Camp 592 

The National Ode, July 4, 1876 593 

America 593 

HENRY TIMROD 

Spring 595 

At Magnolia Cemetery 597 

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 

Aspects of the Pines 598 

A Little While I Fain Would Linger Yet 599 

A Storm in the Distance 600 

FRANCIS BRET HARTE 

Grizzly 601 

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 

When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan 602 

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 

Camping Out 603 



CONTENTS XV 

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN ^^ge 

Pan in Wall Street 614 

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 

The Fool's Prayer 617 

JOAQUIN MILLER 

Crossing the Plains 618 

By the Pacific Ocean 619 

Columbus 619 

EMILY DICKINSON 

The Humming-Bird 621 

Out of the Morning 621 

Chartless 622 

The Robin 622 

In the Garden 622 

Autumn 623 

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking 624 

EUGENE FIELD 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 624 

Little Boy Blue 626 

In the Firelight 626 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

When She Comes Home 627 

The Raggedy Man 628 

The Days Gone By 629 

INDEX 631 



READINGS FROM 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

COLONIAL PERIOD 
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 

[Born at Willoughby, Lincolnshire, England, January, 1579; died at 
London, June 21, 1631] 

POWHATAN'S RECEPTION OF SMITH 

From " A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of 
Note as hath happened in Virginia etc." London, 1608 

Arriving at Weramocomoco their Emperor proudly lying upon 
a bedstead a foot high, upon ten or twelve mats richly hung with 
many chains of great pearls about his neck, and covered with a 
great covering of Rahaughcums. At his head sat a woman, at his 
feet another ; on each side sitting upon a mat upon the ground, 
were ranged his chief men on each side the fire, ten in a rank 
and behind them as many young women, each a great chain of 
white beads over their shoulders, their heads painted in red ; and 
with such a grave and majestical countenance, as drave me into 
admiration to see such state in a naked salvage. 

He kindly welcomed me with good words, and great platters of 
sundry victuals, assuring me his friendship, and my liberty within 
four days. He much delighted in Opechan Comough's relation of 
what I had described to him, and oft examined me upon the same. 

He asked me the cause of our coming. 

I told him being in fight with the Spaniards, our enemy, being 
overpowered, near put to retreat, and by extreme weather put to 



2 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

this shore, where landing at Chesipiack, the people shot us, but at 
Kequoughtan they kindly used us ; we by signs demanded fresh 
water, they described us up the river was all fresh water : at Pas- 
pahegh also they kindly used us : our pinnace being leaky, we 
were enforced to stay to mend her, till Captain Newport, my 
father, came to conduct us away. 

He demanded why we went further with our boat. I told him, 
in that I would have occasion to talk of the back sea, that on the 
other side the main where was salt water. My father had a child 
slain which we supposed Monocan, his enemy had done ; whose 
death we intended to revenge. 

After good deliberation, he began to describe me the countries 
beyond the falls, with many of the rest ; confirming what not 
only Opechancanoyes, and an Indian which had been prisoner to 
Pewhatan had before told me : but some one called it five days, 
some six, some eight, where the said water dashed amongst many 
stones and rocks, each storm ; which caused oft times the head 
of the river to be brackish. 

Anchanachuck he described to be the people that had slain my 
brother : whose death he would revenge. He described also upon 
the same sea, a mighty nation called Pocoughtronack, a fierce 
nation that did eat men, and warred with the people of Moyaoncer 
and Pataromerke, nations upon the top of the head of the Bay, 
under his territories : where the year before they had slain an hun- 
dred. He signified their crowns were shaven, long hair in the 
neck, tied on a knot, swords like pollaxes. 

Beyond them, he described people with short coats, and sleeves 
to the elbows, that passed that way in ships like ours. Many king- 
doms he described me, to the head of the bay, which seemed to 
be a mighty river issuing from mighty mountains betwixt the two 
seas: The people clothed at Ocamahowan, he also confirmed. And 
the southerly countries also, as the rest that reported us to be within 
a day and a half of Mangoge, two days of Chawwonock, six from 
Roonock, to the south part of the back sea. He described a coun- 
try called Anone, where they have abundance of brass, and houses 
walled as ours. 

I requited his discourse (seeing what pride he had in his great 



COLONIAL PERIOD 3 

and spacious dominions, seeing that all he knew were under his 
territories) in describing to him the territories of Europe, which 
was subject to our great king whose subject I was, the innumer- 
able multitude of his ships, I gave him to understand the noise of 
trumpets, and terrible manner of fighting [which] were under Cap- 
tain Newport my father : whom I intituled the Meworames, which 
they call the king of all the waters. At his greatness he admired : 
and not a little feared. He desired me to forsake Paspahegh, and 
to live with him upon his river, a country called Capa Howasicke. 
He promised to give me corn, venison, or what I wanted to feed 
us : Hatchets and copper we should make him, and none should 
disturb us. 

THE POCAHONTAS STORY 
From the "General History of Virginia," etc. (1624), Lin. HI 

Opitchapam the King's brother invited him to his house, where, 
with as many platters of bread, fowl, and wild beasts, as did en- 
viron him, he bid him welcome ; but not any of them would eat 
a bit with him, but put up all the remainder in baskets. 

At his returne to Opechancanough's all the King's women 
and their children, flocked about him for their parts, as a due by 
custom, to be merry with such fragments. 

But his waking mind in hideous dreams did oft see wondrous shapes 
Of bodies strange and huge in growth, and of stupendous makes. 

At last they brought him to Werowocomoco, where was Pow- 
hatan their Emperor. Here more then two hundred of those grim 
courtiers stood wondering at him, as he had been a monster ; till 
Powhatan and his train had put themselves in their greatest brav- 
eries. Before a fire upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with 
a great robe, made of raccoon skins, and all the tails hanging by. 
On either hand did sit a young wench of 16 or 18 years, and along 
on each side the house, two rows of men, and behind them as many 
women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red ; many of 
their heads bedecked with the white down of birds ; but every one 
with something : and a great chain of white beads about their necks. 



4 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

At his entrance before the King, all the people gave a great 
shout. The Queen of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him 
water to wash his hands, and another brought him a bunch of 
feathers, instead of a towel to dry them. Having feasted him after 
their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was 
held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before 
Powhatan : then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged 
him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with 
their clubs, to beat out his brains, Pocahontas the King's dearest 
daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, 
and laid her own upon his to save his from death : whereat the 
Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and 
her bells, beads, and copper ; for they thought him as well of all 
occupations as themselves. For the King himself will make his 
own robes, shoes, bows, arrows, pots ; plant, hunt, or do any thing 
so well as the rest. 

They say he bore a pleasant show, 
But sure his heart was sad. 
For who can pleasant be, and rest, 
That lives in fear and dread : 
And having life suspected, doth 
It still suspected lead. 

Two days after, Powhatan having disguised himself in the most 
fearfulest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought 
forth to a great house in the woods, and there upon a mat by the 
fire to be left alone. Not long after from behind a mat that divided 
the house, was made the most dolefulest noise he ever heard : then 
Powhatan more like a devil than a man, with some two hundred 
more as black as himself, came unto him and told him now they 
were friends, and presently he should go to Jamestown, to send 
him two great guns, and a grindstone, for which he would give 
him the County of Capahowosick, and for ever esteem him as his 
son Nantaquoud. 

So to Jamestown with 1 2 guides Powhatan sent him. That night 
they quartered in the woods, he still expecting (as he had done all 
this long time of his imprisonment) every hour to be put to one 
death or other for all their feasting. But almighty God by his 



COLONIAL PERIOD 5 

divine providence, had mollified the hearts of those stern barba- 
rians with compassion. The next morning betimes they came to 
the fort, where Smith having used the savages with what kindness 
he could, he showed Rawhunt, Powhatan's trusty servant, two demi- 
culverins and a millstone to carry Powhatan : they found them 
somewhat too heavy ; but when they did see him discharge them, 
being loaded with stones, among the boughs of a great tree loaded 
with icicles, the ice and branches came so tumbling down, that the 
poor savages ran away half dead with fear. But at last we regained 
some confidence with them, and gave them such toys : and sent to 
Powhatan his women, and children such presents, as gave them in 
general full content. 

THE CAPTURE OF POCAHONTAS 
From Lib. IV 

But to conclude our peace, thus it happened. Captain Argall 
having entered into a great acquaintance with Japazaws, an old 
friend of Captain Smith's, and so to all our nation, ever since he 
discovered the Country : hard by him there was Pocahontas, whom 
Captain Smith's Relations intituleth the Numpareli of Virginia, and 
though she had been many times a preserver of him and the whole 
colony, yet till this accident she was never seen at Jamestown 
since his departure. 

Being at Patawomeke, as it seems, thinking her self unknown, 
was easily by her friend Japazaws persuaded to go abroad with him 
and his wife to see the ship, for Captaine Argall had promised 
him a copper kettle to bring her but to him, promising no way to 
hurt her, but keep her till they could conclude a peace with her 
father. The savage for this copper kettle would have done any 
thing, it seemed by the Relation. 

For though she had seen and been in many ships, yet he caused 
his wife to fain how desirous she was to see one, and that he offered 
to beat her for her importunity, till she wept. But at last he told 
her, if Pocahontas would go with her, he was content : and thus 
they betrayed the poor innocent Pocahontas aboard, where they 
were all kindly feasted in the cabin. Japazaws treading oft on the 



6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Captain's foot, to remember he had done his part, the Captain when 
he saw his time, persuaded Pocahontas to the gun-room, faining 
to have some conference with Japazaws, which was only that she 
should not perceive he was any way guilty of her captivity : so 
sending for her again, he told her before her friends, she must go 
with him, and compound peace betwixt her country and us, before 
she ever should see Powhatan, whereat the old Jew and his wife 
began to howl and cry as fast as Pocahontas, that upon the Captain's 
fair persuasions, by degrees pacifying her self, and Japazaws and 
his wife, with the kettle and other toys, went merrily on shore, 
and she to Jamestown. 

A messenger forthwith was sent to her father, that his daughter 
Pocahontas he loved so dearly, he must ransom with our men, 
swords, pieces, tools, &c., he treacherously had stolen. 

This unwelcome news much troubled Powhatan, because he 
loved both his daughter and our commodities well, yet it was 
three months after ere he returned us any answer : then by the 
persuasion of the Council, he returned seven of our men, with each 
of them an unserviceable musket, and sent us word, that when we 
would deliver his daughter, he would make us satisfaction for all 
injuries done us, and give us five hundred bushels of corn, and 
forever be friends with us. 

That he sent, we received in part of payment, and returned him 
this answer : — That his daughter should be well used, but we could 
not believe the rest of our arms were either lost or stolen from him, 
and therefore till he sent them, we would keep his daughter. 

This answer, it seemed, much displeased him, for we heard no 
more from him a long time after, when with Captain Argall's ship 
and some other vessels belonging to the Colony, Sir Thomas Dale, 
with a hundred and fifty men well appointed, went up into his own 
River, to his chief habitation, with his daughter. 

With many scornful bravados they affronted us, proudly demand- 
ing why we came thither ; our reply was, we had brought his 
daughter, and to receive the ransom for her that was promised, 
or to have it perforce. 

They nothing dismayed thereat, told us. We were welcome if we 
came to fight, for they were provided for us, but advised us, if 



COLONIAL PERIOD 7 

we loved our lives to retire ; else they would use us as they had 
done Captain Ratcliffe. We told them, we would presently have 
a better answer ; but we were no sooner within shot of the shore 
than they let fly their Arrows among us in the ship. 

Being thus justly provoked, we presently manned our boats, 
went on shore, burned all their houses, and spoiled all they had 
we could find ; and so the next day proceeded higher up the river, 
where they demanded why we burnt their houses, and we, why 
they shot at us : They replied it was some straggling savage, with 
many other excuses ; they intended no hurt, but were our friends. 
We told them, we came not to hurt them, but visit them as 
friends also. 

Upon this we concluded a peace, and forthwith they dispatched 
messengers to Powhatan, whose answer, they told us, wee must ex- 
pect four and twenty hours ere the messengers could return : . . . 

Then they told us, our men were run away for fear we would 
hang them, yet Powhatan's men were run after them : as for our 
swords and pieces, they should be brought us the next day, which 
was only but to delay time : for the next day they came not. 

Then we went higher, to a house of Powhatan's, called Machot, 
where we saw about four hundred men well appointed : here they 
dared us to come on shore which we did : no show of fear they 
made at all, nor offered to resist our landing, but walking boldly 
up and down amongst us, demanded to confer with our captain, of 
his coming in that manner, and to have truce till they could but 
once more send to their king to know his pleasure, which if it were 
not agreeable to their expectations, then they would fight with us, 
and defend their own as they could. Which was but only to defer 
the time, to carry away their provisions : yet we promised them truce 
till the next day at noon, and then if they would fight with us, they 
should know when we would begin by our drums and trumpets. 

Upon this promise two of Powhatan's sons came unto us to see 
their sister, at whose sight, seeing her well, though they heard to 
the contrary, they much rejoiced, promising they would persuade 
her father to redeem her, and forever be friends with us. And upon 
this the two brethren went aboard with us, and we sent Master John 
Rolfe and Master Sparkes to Powhatan, to acquaint him with the 



8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

business ; kindly they were entertained, but not admitted the pres- 
ence of Powhatan, but they spoke with Opechancanough, his brother 
and successor ; he promised to do the best he could to Powhatan, 
all might be well. 

So it being April and time to prepare our ground and set our 
corn, we returned to Jamestown, promising the forbearance of their 
performing their promise, till the next harvest. 

Long before this. Master John Rolfe, an honest gentleman, and 
of good behaviour, had been in love with Pocahontas, and she with 
him, which thing at that instant I made known to Sir Thomas Dale 
by a letter from him, wherein he entreated his advice, and she ac- 
quainted her brother with it, which resolution Sir Thomas Dale well 
approved. The bruit of this mariage came soon to the knowledge 
of Powhatan, a thing acceptable to him, as appeared by his sudden 
consent, for within ten days he sent Opachisco, an old uncle of hers, 
and two of his sons, to see the manner of the mariage, and to do 
in that behalf what they requested, for the confirmation thereof, as 
his deputy ; which was accordingly done about the first of April. 
And ever since we have had friendly trade and commerce, as well 
with Powhatan himself, as all his subjects. 



WILLIAM BRADFORD 

[Born at Austerfield, England, 1590; died at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 

May 9, 1657] 

THE PILGRIMS LEAVE LEYDEN (1620) 

From the History " Of Plymouth Plantation," Book I 

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER 

Of their departure from Leydcii, and other things there about, 
tvith their arrival at Southampton, where they all met together, 
and took in tJieir protnsions. 

At length, after much travail and these debates, all things were 
got ready and provided. A small ship was bought and fitted in 
Holland which was intended as to serve to help to transport them, 
so to stay in the country, and attend upon fishing and such other 



COLONIAL PERIOD 9 

affairs as might be for the good and benefit of the colony when 
they came there. Another was hired at London, of burden about 9. 
score ; and all other things got in readiness. So being ready to 
depart, they had a day of solemn humiliation, their pastor taking 
his text from Ezra 8.21. Ajid there at the river, by Ahava, I pro- 
claimed a fast that we might humble ourselves before our God, 
and seek of him a right way for ?ts, and for our ehildrcn, aud for 
all 02ir substance. Upon which he spent a good part of the day 
very profitably, and suitable to their present occasion. The rest of 
the time was spent in pouring out prayers to the Lord with great 
fervency mixed with abundance of tears. And the time being come 
that they must depart, they were accompanied with most of their 
brethren out of the city, unto a town sundry miles off called Delfes 
Haven, where the ships lay ready to receive them. So they left 
that goodly and pleasant city, which had been their resting place, 
near 1 2 years ; but they knew they were pilgrims and looked not 
much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their 
dearest country, and quieted their spirits. When they came to the 
place they found the ship and all things ready. And such of their 
friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sun- 
dry also came from Amsterdam to see them shipped and to take 
their leave of them. That night was spent with little sleep by the 
most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and 
other real expressions of true Christian love. The next day the 
wind being fair they went aboard, and their friends with them, 
where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting ; 
To see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them, 
what tears did rush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each 
heart ; that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay as 
spectators, could not refrain from tears. Yet comfortable and sweet 
it was to see such lively and true expressions of dear and unfained 
love. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away that 
were thus loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his 
knees (and they all with him,) with watery cheeks commended them 
with most fervent prayers to the Lord and his blessing. And then 
with mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves one 
of another; which proved to be the last leave to many of them. 



lO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Thus hoisting sail, with a prosperous wind they came in short 
time to Southampton, where they found the bigger ship come from 
London, lying ready with all the rest of their company. After a joy- 
ful welcome, and mutual congratulations, with other friendly enter- 
tainments, they fell to parley about their business, how to dispatch 
with the best expedition ; as also with their agents, about the altera- 
tion of the conditions. Mr. Carver pleaded he was employed here 
at Hampton and knew not well what the other had done at London. 
Mr. Cushman answered, he had done nothing but what he was urged 
to partly by the grounds of equity and more especially by necessity, 
otherwise all had been dashed and many undone. And in the be- 
ginning he acquainted his fellow agents herewith, who consented 
unto him, and left it to him to execute, and to receive the money 
at London, and send it down to them at Hampton, where they made 
the provisions ; the which he accordingly did, though it was against 
his mind, and some of the merchants, that they were there made. 
And for giving them notice at Leyden of this change, he could not 
well in regard of the shortness of the time ; again, he knew it would 
trouble them and hinder the business, which was already delayed 
overlong in regard of the season of the year, which he feared they 
would find to their cost. But these things gave not content at present. 
Mr. Weston, likewise, came up from London to see them dispatched 
and to have the conditions confirmed ; but they refused, and answered 
him, that he knew right well that these were not according to the 
first agreement, neither could they yield to them without the con- 
sent of the rest that were behind and indeed they had special charge 
when they came away, from the chief of those that were behind, 
not to do it. At which he was much offended, and told them, they 
must then look to stand on their own legs. So he returned in dis- 
pleasure, and this was the first ground of discontent between them. 
And whereas there wanted well near ^loo to clear things at their 
going away, he would not take order to disburse a penny, but let 
them shift as they could. So they were forced to sell off some of 
their provisions to stop this gap which was some 3. or 4. score 
firkins of butter, which commodity they might best spare, having 
provided too large a quantity of that kind. 



COLONIAL PERIOD II 

THE COMPACT OF THE PILGRIMS 

From Book II 

THE 2 BOOKE 

The rest of this History (if God gives me Hfe, and opportunity) 
I shall, for brevity's sake, handle by way of Annals, noting only 
the heads of principal things, and passages as they fell in order of 
time, and may seem to be profitable to know, or to make use of. 
And this may be as the second Book. 

The Remainder of Anno : 1620 

I shall a little return back and begin with a combination made 
by them before they came ashore, being the first foundation of their 
government in this place ; occasioned partly by the discontented 
mutinous and speeches that some of the strangers amongst them 
had let fall from them in the ship — That when they came ashore 
they would use their own liberty ; for none had power to command 
them, the patent they had being for Virginia, and not for New 
England, which belonged to another Government, with which the 
Virginia Company had nothing to do. And partly that such an act 
by them done (this their condition considered) might be as firm as 
any patent, and in some respects more sure. 

The form was as followeth. 

In y^ name of God, Amen. We whose names are vnderwriten, the loyall 
subjects of our dread soueraigne Lord, Ki/ig James, by y<= grace of God, of 
great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of y^ faith, &c. 

Haueing vndertaken, for y' glorie of God, and advancemente of y*^ christian 
faith and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant y*^ first colonic in 
y'^ Northerne parts of Virginia. Doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in 
y^ presence of God, and one of another, couenant, & combine our selues to- 
geather into a Ciuill body politick, for our better ordering, & preseruation & 
furtherance of y^ ends aforesaid ; and by Vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, 
and frame, such just & equall lawes, ordinances, Acts, constitutions, & offices, 
from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & conuenient for y^ gen- 
eral! good of y"^ Colonic, vnto which we promise all due submission and obedi- 
ence. In witnes whereof we haue herevnder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd 
y*^. II. of Nouember, in y'= year of y'= raigne of our soueraigne Lord, King 
lames, of England, France, & Ireland y° eighteenth, and of Scotland y'= fiftie 
fourth. An°: Dom. 1620. 



12 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

EARLY TRIALS OF THE PlLCiRLM FATHERS (1620) 
From Book II 

In these hard and difficult beginnings they found some discon- 
tents and murmurings arise amongst some, and mutinous speeches 
and carriages in others ; but they were soon quelled, and overcome, 
by the wisdom, patience, and just and equal carriage of things, by 
the Governor and better part which clave faithfully together in the 
main. But that which. was most sad, and lamentable, was, that in 
two or three months' time half of their company died, especially 
in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting 
houses and other comforts ; being infected with scurvy and other 
diseases, which this long voyage and their inaccommodate condi- 
tion had brought upon them ; so as there died sometimes two or 
three of a day, in the foresaid time ; that of one hundred and odd 
persons scarce fifty remained : and of these in the time of most 
distress there was but six or seven sound persons ; who to their 
great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor 
day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, 
fetched them wood, made them fires, drest them meat, made their 
beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them ; 
in a word did all the homely, and necessary offices for them, which 
dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named and all 
this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, 
showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren ; 
a rare example and worthy to be remembered. Two of these seven 
were Mr. William Brewster their reverend Elder, and Myles 
Standish their Captain and military commander (unto whom my- 
self, and many others were much beholden in our low, and sick 
condition) and yet the Lord so upheld these persons, as in this 
general calamity they were not at all infected either with sickness, 
or lameness. And what I have said of these, I may say of many 
others who died in this general visitation and others yet living ; 
that whilst they had health, yea or any strength continuing they 
were not wanting to anv that had need of them ; and I doubt not 
but their recompense is with the Lord. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 13 

But I may not here pass by another remarkable passage not to 
be forgotten. As this calamity fell among the passengers that 
were to be left here to plant, and were hasted ashore and made 
to drink water, that the seamen might have the more beer, and 
one in his sickness desiring but a small can of beer, it was an- 
swered, that if he were their own father he should have none ; the 
disease began to fall amongst them also, so as almost half of their 
company died before they went away, and many of their officers 
and lustiest men, as the boatswain, gunner, three quartermasters, 
the cook, and others. At which the master was something struck 
and sent to the sick ashore and told the Governor he should send 
for beer for them that had need of it, though he drunk water home- 
ward bound. But now amongst his company there was far another 
kind of carriage in this misery than amongst the passengers ; for 
they that before had been boon companions in drinking and jollity 
in the time of their health and welfare, began now to desert one 
another in this calamity, saying they would not hazard their lives 
for them, they should be infected by coming to help them in their 
cabins, and so, after they came to die by it, would do little or 
nothing for them, but if they died let them die. But such of the 
passengers as were yet aboard showed them what mercy they could, 
which made some of their hearts relent, as the boatswain (and some 
others), who was a proud young man, and would often curse and 
scoff at the passengers : but when he grew weak, they had com- 
passion on him and helped him ; then he confessed he did not 
deserve it at their hands, he had abused them in word and deed. 
O ! saith he, you, I now see, show your love like Christians indeed 
one to another, but we let one another lie and die like dogs. An- 
other lay cursing his wife, saying if it had not been for her he had 
never come this unlucky voyage, and anon cursing his fellows, say- 
ing he had done this and that, for some of them, he had spent so 
much, and so much, amongst them, and they were now weary of 
him, and did not help him, having need. Another gave his com- 
panion all he had, if he died, to help him in his weakness : he 
went and got a little spice and made him a mess of meat once or 
twice, and because he died not so soon as he expected, he went 



14 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

amongst his fellows, and swore the rogue would cozen him, he 
would see him choked before he made him any more meat : and 
yet the poor fellow died before morning. 

All this while the Indians came skulking about them, and would 
sometimes show themselves aloof of, but when any approached 
near them, they would run away ; and once they stole away their 
tools where they had been at work and were gone to dinner. But 
about the i6 of March a certain Indian came boldly amongst them, 
and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well under- 
stand, but marvelled at it. At length they understood by discourse 
with him, that he was not of these parts, but belonged to the east- 
ern parts where some English ships came to fish, with whom he. 
was acquainted, and could name sundry of them by their names, 
amongst whom he had got his language. He became profitable to 
them in acquainting them with many things concerning the state 
of the country in the East-parts where he lived, which was after- 
wards profitable unto them ; as also of the people here, of their 
names, number and strength, of their situation and distance from 
this place, and who was chief amongst them. His name was Sama- 
sett; he told them also of another Indian whose name was Squanto, 
a native of this place, who had been in England and could speak 
better English than himself. Being after some time of entertain- 
ment, and gifts dismissed, a while after he came again, and five 
more with him, and they brought again all the tools that were stolen 
away before, and made way for the coming of their great Sachem, 
called Massasoyt. Who about four or five days came with the chief 
of his friends, and other attendance with the aforesaid Squanto. 
With whom after friendly entertainment, and some gifts given 
him, they made a peace with him (which hath now continued this 
twenty-four years). 

CHRISTMAS PASTIMES (1622) 
From Book II 

On the day called Christmas-day, the Governor called them out 
to work, (as was used) but the most of this new company excused 
themselves, and said it went against their consciences to work on 
that day. So the Governor told them that if they made it matter 



COLONIAL PERIOD 15 

of conscience, he would spare them, till they were better informed ; 
so he led away the rest and left them ; but when they came home 
at noon, from their work, he found them in the street at play 
openly ; some pitching the bar, and some at stool-ball, and such 
like sports. So he went to them, and took away their implements, 
and told them, that was against his conscience, that they should 
play, and others work ; if they made the keeping of it matter of 
devotion, let them keep their houses, but there should be no gam- 
ing, or revelling in the streets. Since which time nothing hath 
been attempted that way, at least openly, . . . 



MOURT'S RELATION 

[Relation or journal of the beginning and proceeding of the English planta- 
tion settled at Plimoth in New England, by certain English adventurers. . . . 

London, 1622] 

YOUTHFUL EXUBERANCE ON THE "MAYFLOWER" 

The fifth day [Dec, 5, 1620] we through God's mercy escaped 
a great danger by the foolishness of a boy, one of Francis Billington's 
sons, who in his father's absence had got gunpowder and had shot 
off a piece or two and made squibs, and there being a fowling piece 
charged in his father's cabin shot her off in the cabin, there being 
a little barrel of powder half-full scattered in and about the cabin, 
the fire being within four foot of the bed between the decks, and 
many flints and iron things about the cabin, and many people about 
the fire, and yet, by God's mercy, no harm done, 

EXPLORING CAPE COD 

Wednesday, the 6th of December, we set out, being very cold 
and hard weather. We were a long while after we launched from 
the ship before we could get clear of a sandy point which lay within 
less than a furlong of the same. In which time two were very sick, 
and Edward Tilley had like to have sounded [swooned] with cold ; 
the gunner was also sick unto death, (but hope of tru[c]king made 
him to go) and so remained all that day and the next night ; at 



l6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN Ll'lERATURE 

length we got clear of the sandy point and got up our sails, and 
within an hour or two we got under the weather shore, and then 
had smoother water and better sailing, but it was very cold, for the 
water froze on our clothes, and made them many times like coats 
of iron. . . . 

. . . We then directed our course along the sea sands, to the 
place where we first saw the Indians ; when we were there, we saw 
it was also a grampus which they were cutting up ; they cut it into 
long rands or pieces, about an ell long and two handful broad ; we 
found here and there a piece scattered by the way, as it seemed, 
for haste. This place the most were minded we should call the 
Grampus Bay because we found so many of them there. We fol- 
lowed the tract of the Indians' bare feet a good way on the sands. 
At length we saw where they struck into the woods by the side 
of a pond. As we went to view the place, one said he thought he 
saw an Indian house among the trees, so went up to see. . . , 
So we lit on a path but saw no house and followed a great way into 
the woods. At length we found where corn had been set but not 
that year. Anon we found a great burying place one part whereof 
was encompassed with a great palisado like a churchyard. . . . 
Those graves were more sumptuous than those at Cornhill, yet we 
digged none of them up, but only viewed them and went our way. 

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS 

That night we returned again ashipboard with resolution the 
next morning to settle on some of those places. So, in the morn- 
ing, after we had called on God for direction, we came to this 
resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view 
of two places which we thought most fitting for us ; for we could 
not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals 
being much spent, especially our beer, and it being now the 19th 
[new style 29th] of December. After our landing and viewing of 
the places so well as we could, we came to a conclusion by most 
voices to set on the mainland, on the first place, on an high ground 
where there is a great deal of land cleared and hath been planted 
with corn three or four years ago, and there is a very sweet brook 
runs under the hillside and many delicate springs of as good water 



COLONIAL PERIOD 17 

as can be drunk, and where we may harbor our shallops and boats 
exceeding well, and in this brook much good fish in their season. 
On the further side of the river also much cornground cleared. In 
one field is a great hill [t.e. Burial Hill] on which we point to 
make a platform and plant our ordnance which will command all 
round about ; from thence we may see into the bay and far into 
the sea, and we may see thence Cape Cod. Our greatest labor will 
be fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English 
mile, but there is enough so far off. What people inhabit here 
we yet know not, for as yet we have seen none. . . . 

Monday, the 25th, being Christmas Day [new style, Jan. 4th] 
we began to drink water aboard, but at night the master caused 
us to have some beer, and so on board we had divers times now 
and then some beer, but on shore none at all. . , . 

Thursday the 28th of December [new style, Jan. 7th] ... in 
the afternoon we went to measure out the ground, and first we took 
notice how many families they were, willing all single men that had 
no wives to join with some family as they thought fit, that so we 
might build fewer houses ; which was done and we reduced them 
to nineteen families. To greater families we allotted larger plots ; 
to every person half a pole in breadth and three in length, and so 
lots were cast where every man should lie ; which was done and 
staked out. We thought this proportion was large enough at the 
first, for houses and gardens to impale them round, considering 
the weakness of our people, many of them growing ill with colds, 
for our former discoveries in frost and storms and the wading at 
Cape Cod had brought much weakness amongst us. . . . 

INDIAN COURTESIES 

Thursday the 22 nd of March [new style April ist]. . . . Samoset 
came again and Squanto, the only native of Patuxat where we now 
inhabit, who was one of the twenty captives that by Hunt were 
carried away and had been in England and dwelt in Cornhill with 
Master John Slanie, a merchant, and could speak a little English, 
with three others ; and they brought with them some few skins to 
truck and some red herrings newly taken and dried but not salted, 
and signified unto us that their great Sagamore, Massasoit, was 



1 8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

hard by with Ouadequina, his brother, and all their men. They 
could not well express in English what they would, but after an 
hour the King came to the top of an hill over against us, and had 
in his train sixty men, tJiat we could well behold them and they us. 
We were not willing to send our Governor to them and they un- 
willing to come to us ; so Squanto went again unto him, who 
brought word that we should send one to parley with him, which 
we did, which was Edward Winslow, to know his mind and to 
signify the mind and the will of our Governor, which was to have 
trading and peace with them. We sent to the King a pair of 
knives and a copper chain with a jewel at it. To Ouadequina we 
sent likewise a knife and a jewel to hang in his ear, and withal 
a pot of strong water, a good quantity of biscuit and some butter, 
which were all willingly accepted. 



JOHN WINTHROP 

[Born at Groton, England, January 12, 1587; died at Boston, Massachusetts, 

March 26, 1649] 

AN ELECTION IN THE COLONIAL TIMES 
From Winthrop's " History of New England " 

[1637. May 17.] Our court of elections was at Newtown. So 
soon as the court was set, being about one of the clock, a petition 
was preferred by those of Boston. The governor would have read 
it, but the deputy said it was out of order ; it was a court for elec- 
tions, and those must first be despatched, and then their petitions 
should be heard. Divers others also opposed that course, as an ill 
precedent, etc. ; and the petition, being about pretence of liberty, 
etc., (though intended chiefly for revoking the sentence given 
against Mr. Wheelwright,) would have spent all the day in debate, 
etc. ; but yet the governor and those of that party would not proceed 
to election, except the petition was read. Much time was already 
spent about this debate, and the people crying out for election, it 
was moved by the deputy, that the people should divide themselves, 
and the greater number must carry it. And so it was done, and 



COLONIAL PERIOD 19 

the greater number by many were for election. But the governor 
and that side kept their place still, and would not proceed. Where- 
upon the deputy told him, that, if he would not go to election, he 
and the rest of that side would proceed. Upon that, he came 
from his company, and they went to election ; and Mr. Winthrop 
was chosen governor, Mr. Dudley deputy, and Mr. Endecott of 
the standing council ; and Mr. Israel Stoughton and Mr. Richard 
Saltonstall were called in to be assistants ; and Mr. Vane, Mr. 
Coddington, and Mr. Dummer, (being all of that faction,) were 
left quite out. 

There was great danger of a tumult that day ; for those of that 
side grew into fierce speeches, and some laid hands on others ; but 
seeing themselves too weak, they grew quiet. They expected a 
great advantage that day, because the remote towns were allowed 
to come in by proxy ; but it fell out, that there were enough beside. 
But if it had been otherwise, they must have put in their deputies, 
as other towns had done, for all matters beside elections. Boston, 
having deferred to choose deputies till the election was passed, 
went home that night, and the next morning they sent Mr, Vane, 
the late governor, and Mr. Coddington, and Mr. Hoffe, for their 
deputies ; but the court, being grieved at it, found a means to send 
them home again, for that two of the freemen of Boston had no 
notice of the election. So they went all home, and the next morn- 
ing they returned the same gentlemen again upon a new choice ; 
and the court not finding how they might reject them, they were 
admitted, . . . 

ITEMS FROM WINTHROP'S HISTORY COVERING PERIOD 
FROM 1631-1648 

163 1. June 14.] At this court one Philip Ratcliff, a servant of 
Mr. Cradock, being convict, ore temis, of most foul, scandalous 
invectives against our churches and government, was censured to 
be whipped, lose his ears, and be banished from the plantation, 
which was presently executed. 

1632.] At Watertown there was (in the view of divers wit- 
nesses) a great combat between a mouse and a snake ; and after 
a long fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor 



20 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave 
this interpretation : That the snake was the devil ; the mouse was 
a poor contemptible people, which God had brought hither, which 
should overcome Satan here, and dispossess him of his Kingdom. 

1633.] Two little girls of the governor's family were sitting 
under a great heap of logs, plucking of birds, and the wind driv- 
ing the feathers into the house, the governor's wife caused them 
to remove away. They were no sooner gone, but the whole heap 
of logs fell down in the place, and had crushed them to death, if 
the Lord, in his special providence, had not delivered them. 

Aug. 6.] Two men servants to one Moodye, of Roxbury, re- 
turning in a boat from the windmill, struck upon the oyster bank. 
They went out to gather oysters, and not making fast their boat, 
when the flood came, it floated away, and they were both drowned, 
although they might have waded out on either side ; but it was 
an evident judgment of God upon them, for they were wicked 
persons. . . . 

1639.] There happened a memorable thing at Plymouth about 
this time. One Keysar, of Lynn, being at Plymouth in his boat, 
and one Dickerson with him, a professor, but a notorious thief, 
was coming out of the harbor with the ebb, and the wind southerly, 
a fresh gale ; yet, with all their skill and labor, they could not in 
three hours, get the boat above one league, so as they were forced 
to come to an anchor, and, at the flood, to go back to the town, 
and, as soon as they were come in, the said Dickerson was arrested 
upon suspicion of a gold ring and some other pieces of gold, which, 
upon search, were found about him, and he was then whipped for 
it, . . . These and many other examples of discovering hypocrites 
and other lewd persons, and bringing them under their deserved 
punishments, do (among other things) show the presence of power 
of God in his ordinances, and his blessing upon his people while 
they endeavor to walk before him with uprightness. 

1640.] At the court of assistants, one Hugh Bewett was ban- 
ished for holding publicly and maintaining that he was free from 
original sin and from actual also for half a year before, and that 
all true christians after ... are enabled to live without committing 
actual sin. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 21 

1640.] About this time there fell out a thing worthy of observa- 
tion. Mr. Winthrop the younger, one of the magistrates, having 
many books in a chamber where there was corn of divers sorts, had 
among them one wherein the Greek Testament, the Psalms, and 
the Common Prayer were bound together. He found the Common 
Prayer eaten with mice, every leaf of it, and not any of the two 
other touched, nor any other of his books, though there were 
above a thousand. 

1 64 1.] A young man, a tanner in Boston, going to wash him- 
self in a creek, said, jestingly, I will go and drown myself now, 
which fell out accordingly; for by the slipperiness of the earth, he 
was carried beyond his depth, and having no skill to swim, was 
drowned, though company were at hand, and one in the water 
with him. 

1642.] Nine bachelors commenced at Cambridge ; they were 
young men of good hope, and performed their acts, so as gave 
good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts. The Gen- 
eral Court had settled a government or superintendency over the 
college, viz. all the magistrates and elders over the six nearest 
churches and the president, or the greatest part of these. Most of 
them were now present at this first commencement, and dined at 
the college with the scholars' ordinary commons, which was done 
of purpose for the students' encouragement, etc., and it gave good 
content to all. 

1645.] At Ipswich there was a calf brought forth with one head 
and three mouths, three noses, and six eyes. What these prodigies 
portended the Lord only knows, which in his due time he will 
manifest. 

1646.] Mention was made before of some beginning to instruct 
the Indians, etc. Mr. John Eliot, teacher of the church of Rox- 
bury, found such encouragement, as he took great pains to get 
their language, and in a few months could speak of the things of 
God to their understanding ; and God prospered his endeavors, 
so as he kept a constant lecture to them in two places, one week 
at the wigwam of one Wabon, a new sachem near Watertown mill, 
and the other the next week in the wigwam of Cutshamekin near 
Dorchester mill. And for the furtherance of the work of God, 



22 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

divers of the English resorted to his lecture, and the governor and 
other of the magistrates and elders sometimes ; and the Indians 
began to repair thither from other parts. 

His manner of proceeding was thus : he would persuade one of 
the other elders or some magistrate to begin the exercise with prayer 
in English ; then he took a text, and read it first in the Indian lan- 
guage, and after in English ; then he preached to them in Indian 
about an hour (but first I should have spoke of the catechising their 
children, who were soon brought to answer him some short ques- 
tions, whereupon he gave each of them an apple or a cake) ; then 
he demanded of some of the chiefs, if they understood him ; if they 
answered, yea, then he asked of them if they had any questions to 
propound. And they had usually two or three or more questions, 
which he did resolve. 

At one time (when the governor was there and about two hundred 
people, Indian and English, in one wigwam of Cutshamekin's) an 
old man asked him, if God would receive such an old man as he 
was ; to whom he answered by opening the parable of the work- 
men that were hired into the vineyard ; and when he had opened 
it, he asked the old man, if he did believe it, who answered he did, 
and was ready to weep, . . . 

The Indians were usually very attentive, and kept their children 
so quiet as caused no disturbance. Some of them began to be seri- 
ously affected, and to understand the things of God, and they were 
generally ready to reform whatsoever they were told to be against 
the word of God, as their sorcery (which they call powwowing), their 
whoredoms, etc., idleness, etc. The Indians grew very inquisitive 
after knowledge both in things divine and also human, so as one 
of them, meeting with an honest plain Englishman, would needs 
know of him, what were the first beginnings (which we call prin- 
ciples) of a commonwealth. The Englishman, being far short in 
the knowledge of such matters, yet ashamed that an Indian should 
find an Englishman ignorant of any thing, bethought himself what 
answer to give him, at last resolved upon this, viz., that the first 
principle of a commonwealth was salt, for (saith he) by means of 
salt we can keep our flesh and fish, to have it ready when we need 
it, whereas you lose much for want of it, and are sometimes ready 



COLONIAL PERIOD 23 

to starve. A second principle is iron, for thereby we fell trees, build 
houses, till our land, etc. A third is, ships, by which we carry forth 
such commodities as we have to spare, and fetch in such as we 
need, as cloth, wine, etc. Alas ! (saith the Indian) then I fear, we 
shall never be a commonwealth, for we can neither make salt, nor 
iron, nor ships. 

LETTERS OF JOHN WINTJiROP AND HIS THIRD WIFE, 
MARGARET 

JOHN WINTHROP TO HIS WIFE, APRIL 3, 1630 

My love, my joy, my faithful one, I suppose thou didst not expect 
to have any more letters from me till the return of our ships ; but 
so is the good pleasure of God, that the wind should not serve yet 
to carry us hence. He will do all things in his own time, and that 
shall be for the best in the end. We acknowledge it a great mercy 
to us, that we went not out to sea on Monday, when the wind was 
fair for one day ; for we had been exposed, ever since, to sore tem- 
pests and contrary winds. I praise God, we are all in good health, 
and want nothing. For myself, I was never at more liberty of body 
and mind these many years. The Lord make me thankful and wise 
to improve his blessings for the furtherance of his own work. I desire 
to resign myself wholly to his gracious disposing. Oh that I had 
an heart so to do, and to trust perfectly in him for his assistance 
in all our ways. We find him still going along with us. He hath 
brought in the heart of the master of our ship to afford us all good 
respect, and to join with us in every good action. Yesterday he 
caused his seamen to keep a fast with us, wherein the Lord assisted 
us and our minister very comfortably ; and when five of the clock 
came, I had respite to remember thee (it being Friday), and to parley 
with thee, and to meet thee in spirit before the Lord. . . . 

I am uncertain whether I shall have opportunity to send these 
to thee ; for, if the wind turn, we shall soon be gone. Therefore 
I will not write much. I know it will be sufficient for thy present 
comfort, to hear of our welfare ; and this is the third letter I have 
written to thee, since I came to Hampton, in requital of those two 
I received from thee, which I do often read with much delight, 



24 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

apprehending so much love and sweet affection in them, as I am 
never satisfied with reading, nor can read them without tears ; but 
whether they proceed from joy, sorrow, or desire, or from that con- 
sent of affection which I always hold with thee, I cannot conceive. 
Ah, my dear heart, I ever held thee in high esteem, as thy love 
and goodness hath well deserved ; but (if it be possible) I shall yet 
prize thy virtue at a greater rate, and long more to enjoy thy sweet 
society than ever before. I am sure thou art not short of me in this 
desire. Let us pray hard, and pray in faith, and our God, in his 
good time, will accomplish our desire. Oh, how loath am I to bid 
thee farewell ! but, since it must be, farewell, my sweet love, fare- 
well. Farewell, my dear children and family. The Lord bless you 
all, and grant me to see your faces once again. Come (my dear), 
take him and let him rest in thine arms, who will ever remain, 

Thy faithful husband 

Jo. WiNTHROP 

Commend my love to all our friends at Castleins, Mr. Leigh and 
his wife, my neighbor Cole and his wife, and all the rest of our good 
friends and neighbors, and our good friends at Maplested, when you 
see them, and those our worthy and kind friends at Assington, etc. 
My brother Arthur hath carried himself very soberly since he came 
on shipboard, and so hath Mr. Brand's son, and my cousin Ro. 
Sampson. I hope their friends shall hear well of them. 

From aboard the Arbclla, riding before Yarmouth, 
in the Isle of Wight, April 3, 1630. 

To my very loving Wife, Mrs. Winthrop, 
the elder, at Groton, in Suffolk, ifd. 

MRS. WINTHROP TO HER HUSBAND 

Dear in my thoughts, I blush to think how much I have neglected 
the opportunity of presenting my love to you. Sad thoughts possess 
my spirits, and I cannot repulse them ; which makes me unfit for 
any thing, wondering what the Lord means by all these troubles 
among us. Sure I am, that all shall work to the best to them that 



COLONIAL PERIOD 25 

love God, or rather are loved of him. I know he will bring light 
out of obscurity, and make his righteousness shine forth as clear 
as the noonday. Yet I find in myself an adverse spirit, and a trem- 
bling heart, not co-willing to submit to the will of God as I desire. 
There is a time to plant, and a time to pull up that which is planted, 
which I could desire might not be yet. But the Lord knoweth what 
is best, and his will be done. But I will write no more. Hoping 
to see thee to-morrow, my best affections being commended to your- 
self, the rest of our friends at Newton, I commend thee to God. 

Your loving wife 

Margaret Winthrop 
Sad Boston, 1637 
To her honored Husband, \ 
these be delivered J 



JOHN COTTON 

[Born at Derby, England, 1585; died at Boston, Massachusetts, 1652] 

A DEFENCE OF PERSECUTION 

From " An Answer of Mr. John Cotton of Boston in New England, 

TO THE Aforesaid Arguments against Persecution for Cause of 

Conscience," printed in Williams' " Bloody Tenent " 

Your second head of reasons is taken from the profession and 
practice of famous princes. King James, Stephen of Poland, King 
of Bohemia. 

Whereunto a treble answer may briefly be returned. 

First, we willingly acknowledge, that none is to be persecuted 
at all, no more than they may be oppressed for righteousness sake. 

Again, we acknowledge that none is to be punished for his con- 
science, though misinformed, as hath been said, unless his error 
be fundamental, or seditiously and turbulently promoted, and that 
after due conviction of his conscience, that it may appear he is not 
punished for his conscience, but for sinning against his conscience. 

Furthermore, we acknowledge none is to be constrained to believe 
or profess the true religion till he be convinced in judgment of the 



26 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

truth of it : but yet restrained he may (be) from blaspheming the 
truth, and from seducing any unto pernicious errors. 

2. We answer, what princes profess or practice, is not a rule 
of conscience : they many times tolerate that in point of State 
policy, which cannot justly be tolerated in point of true Christianity. 

Again, princes many times tolerate offenders out of very necessity, 
when the offenders are either too many, or too mighty for them to 
punish, in which respect David tolerated Joab and his murthers, 
but against his will. 

3. We answer further, that for those three princes named by 
you, who tolerated religion, we can name you more and greater 
who have not tolerated Heretics and Schismatics, notwithstanding 
their pretence of conscience, and arrogating the crown of martyrdom 
to their sufferings. 

Constantine the Great at the request of the general Council 
of Nice, banished Arius with some of his fellows. Sozom. lib. i. 
Eccles. Hist. cap. 19. 20. The same Constantine made a severe 
law against the Donatists. And the like proceedings against them 
were used by Valentinian, Gratian, and Theodosius, as Augustine 
reporteth in Epist. 166. Only Julian the Apostate granted liberty 
to Heretics as well as to Pagans, that he might by tolerating all 
weeds to grow, choke the vitals of Christianity, which was also 
the practice and sin of Valens the Arian. 

Queen Elizabeth, as famous for her government as any of the 
former, it is well known what laws she made and executed against 
Papists. Yea and King James (one of your own witnesses) though 
he was slow in proceeding against Papists (as you say) for conscience 
sake, yet you are not ignorant how sharply and severely he punished 
those whom the malignant world calleth Puritans, men of more 
conscience and better faith than he tolerated. 

I come now to your third and last argument, taken from the 
judgment of ancient and later writers, yea even of Papists them- 
selves, who have condemned persecution for conscience sake. 

You begin with Hilary, whose testimony we might admit without 
any prejudice to the truth : for it is true, the Christian Church did 
not persecute, but is persecuted. But to excommunicate an Heretic, 
is not to persecute ; that is, it is not to punish an innocent, but a 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



27 



culpable and damnable person, and that not for conscience, but for 
persisting in error against light of conscience, whereof it hath been 
convinced. 

It is true also what he saith, that neither the Apostles did, nor 
may we propagate (the) Christian Religion by the sword : but if 
Pagans cannot be won by the word, they are not to be compelled 
by the sword. Nevertheless, this hindreth not, but if they or any 
others should blaspheme the true God, and his true religion, they 
ought to be severely punished : and no less do they deserve, if they 
seduce from the truth to damnable heresies or idolatry. 

ON MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. THOMAS 

HOOKER, LATE PASTOR OF THE CHURCH AT HARTFORD 

ON CONNECTIQUOT 

To see three things was holy Austin's wish, 
Rome in her Flower, Christ Jesus in the Plesh, 
And Paul i' th Pulpit ; Lately men might see. 
Two first, and more, in Hooker's Ministry. 

Zion in Beauty, is a fairer sight. 

Than Rome in Flower, with all her Glory dight : 

Yet Zion's Beauty did most clearly shine. 

In Hooker's Rule, and Doctrine ; both Divine. 

Christ in the Spirit, is more than Christ in P^lesh, 
Our Souls to quicken, and our States to bless : 
Yet Christ in Spirit brake forth mightily. 
In Faithful Hooker's searching Ministry. 

Paul in the Pulpit, Hooker could not reach. 
Yet did He Christ in Spirit so lively Preach : 
That living Hearers thought He did inherit 
A double Portion of Paul's lively spirit. 

Prudent in Rule, in Argument quick, full : 
Fervent in Prayer, in Preaching powerful : 
That well did learned Ames record bear, 
The like to Him He never wont to hear. 



28 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

'Twas of Geneva's Worthies said, with wonder, 
(Those Worthies Three : ) Farell was wont to thunder ; 
Viret, Hke Rain, on tender grass to shower, 
But Calvin, Hvely Oracles to pour. 

All these in Hooker's spirit did remain : 
A Son of Thunder, and a Shower of Rain, 
A pourer forth of lively Oracles, 
In saving souls, the sum of miracles. 

Now blessed Hooker, thou art set on high, 

Above the thankless world, and cloudy sky : 

Do thou of all thy labor reap the Crown, 

Whilst we here reap the seed, which thou hast sowen. 



NATHANIEL WARD 

[Born at Haverhill (?), England, about 1578; died in England about 1653] 

WOMEN'S FASHIONS 
From "The Simple Cobler of Aggawam i\ America" 

Should I not keep promise in speaking a little to Women's 
fashions, they would take it unkindly. I was loath to pester 
better matter with such stuff ; I rather thought it meet to let them 
stand by themselves, like the Qhcb Genus in the grammar, being 
deficients, or redundants, not to be brought under any rule : I shall 
therefore make bold for this once, to borrow a little of their 
loose-tongued liberty, and misspend a word or two upon their long- 
waisted, but short-skirted patience : a little use of my stirrup will 
do no harm. . . . 

It is known more than enough, that I am neither niggard, nor 
cynic, to the due bravery of the true gentry. I honor the woman 
that can honor herself with her attire ; a good text always deserves 
a fair margent ; I am not much offended if I see a trim far trimmer 
than she that wears it. In a word, whatever Christianity or civility 
will allow, I can afford with London measure : but when I hear 
a nugiperous gentledame inquire what dress the queen is in this 



COLONIAL PERIOD 29 

week : what the nudiustertian fashion of the court ; I mean the 
very newest ; with egg to be in it in all haste, whatever it be ; I 
look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter 
of a cipher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kicked, if she were 
of a kickable substance, than either honored or humored. 

To speak moderately, I truly confess it is beyond the ken of my 
understanding to conceive how those women should have any true 
grace, or valuable virtue, that have so little wit, as to disfigure 
themselves with such exotic garbs, as not only dismantles their 
native lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gant bargeese, ill- 
shapen-shotten shell-fish, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or at the best 
into French flurts of the pastery, which a proper English woman 
should scorn with her heels. It is no marvel they wear drails on 
the hinder part of their heads, having nothing as it seems in the 
forepart, but a few squirrels' brains to help them frisk from one 
ill-favored fashion to another. 

These whim Crown 'd shes, these fashion-fancying wits, 
Are empty thin brain'd shells, and fiddling Kits. 

The very troublers and impoverishers of mankind, I can hardly 
forbear to commend to the world a saying of a lady living some 
time with the Queen of Bohemia ; I know not where she found it, 
but it is pity it should be lost. 

The world is full of care, much like unto a bubble, 

Women and care, and care and Women, and Women and care and trouble. 

The verses are even enough for such odd pegma's. I can make 
myself sick at any time, with comparing the dazzling splendor 
wherewith our gentlewomen were embellished in some former 
habits, with the gut-foundered goosedom, wherewith they are now 
surcingled and debauched. We have about five or six of them in 
our colony : if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my 
fancy of them for a month after. I have been a solitary widower 
almost twelve years, purposed lately to make a step over to my 
native country for a yoke-fellow : but when I consider how women 
there have tripe-wifed themselves with their cladments, I have no 
heart to the voyage, lest their nauseous shapes and the sea, should 
work too sorely upon my stomach, I speak sadly ; methinks it 



30 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

should break the hearts of l^^nglish men, to see so many goodly 
English women imprisoned in French cages, peering out of their 
hood holes for some men of mercy to help them with a little wit, 
and nobody relieves them. 

It is a more common than convenient saying, that nine tailors 
make a man : it were well if nineteen could make a woman to 
her mind. If tailors were men indeed, well furnished but with mere 
moral principles, they would disdain to be led about like apes, by 
such mimic marmosets. It is a most unworthy thing for men that 
have bones in them, to spend their lives in making fiddle-cases for 
futilous women's fancies ; which are the very pettitoes of infirmity, 
the giblets of perquisquilian toys. I am so charitable to think, that 
most of that mystery would work the cheerfuller while they live, 
if they might be well discharged of the tiring slavery of mistiring 
women. It is no little labor to be continually putting up English 
women, into outlandish casks ; who if they be not shifted anew, 
once in a few months, grow too sour for their husbands. What 
this trade will answer for themselves when God shall take measure 
of tailors' consciences is beyond my skill to imagine. There was a 

time when, 

The joining of the Red Rose with the White, 
Did set our State into a Damask plight. 

But now our roses are turned to jiorc dc liccs, our carnations to 
tulips, our gillyflowers to daisies, our city dames, to an indenomin- 
able quaemalry of overturcased things. He that makes coats for 
the moon, had need take measures every noon : and he that makes 
for women, as often, to keep them from lunacy. 

I have often heard divers ladies vent loud feminine complaints 
of the wearisome varieties and chargeable changes of fashions : I 
marvel themselves prefer not a bill of redress. I would Essex ladies 
would lead the chore, for the honor of their county and persons ; 
or rather the thrice honorable ladies of the court, whom it best 
beseems : who may well presume of a Lc Roy Ic vciilt from our 
sober King, a Lcs Scigncui's out asscntns from our prudent peers, 
and the like Asscntns, from our considerate, I dare not say wife- 
worn Commons ; who I believe had much rather pass one such 
bill, than pay so many tailor's bills as they are forced to do. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 31 

Most dear and unparalleled ladies, be pleased to attempt it : as 
you have the precellency of the women of the world for beauty 
and feature ; so assume the honor to give, and not take law from 
any, in matter of attire. If ye can transact so fair a motion among 
yourselves unanimously, I dare say, they that most renite, will 
least repent. What greater honor can your honors desire, than to 
build a promontory precedent to all foreign ladies, to deserve so 
eminently at the hands of all the English gentry present and to 
come : and to confute the opinion of all the wise men in the world ; 
who never thought it possible for women to do so good a work. 

If any man think I have spoken rather merrily than seriously 
he is much mistaken, I have written what I write with all the in- 
dignation I can, and no more than I ought. I confess I veered 
my tongue to this kind of language dc indnstria though unwillingly, 
supposing those I speak to are uncapable of grave and rational 
arguments. 

I desire all ladies and gentlewomen to understand that all this 
while I intend not such as through necessary modesty to avoid 
morose singularity, follow fashions slowly, a flight shot or two off, 
showing by their moderation, that they rather draw countermont 
with their hearts, than put on by their examples. 

I point my pen only against the light-heeled beagles that lead 
the chase so fast, that they run all civility out of breath, against 
these ape-headed pullets, which invent antique fool-fangles, merely 
for fashion and novelty sake. 

In a word, if I begin once to declaim against fashions, let men 
and women look well about them, there is somewhat in the busi- 
ness ; I confess to the world, I never had grace enough to be strict 
in that kind ; and of late years, I have found syrup of pride very 
wholesome in a due dose, which makes me keep such store of that 
drug by me, that if any body comes to me for a question-full or 
two about fashions, they never complain of me for giving them 
hard measure, or under weight. 

But I address myself to those who can both hear and mend all 
if they please : I seriously fear, if the pious Parliament do not find 
time to state fashions, as ancient Parliaments have done in some 
part, God will hardly find a time to state religion or peace. They 



32 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

are the surquedries of pride, the wantonness of idleness, provoking 
sins, the certain prodromies of assured judgment, Zeph. i. 7, 8. 

It is beyond all account how many gentlemen's and citizens' 
estates are deplumed by their feather-headed wives, what useful 
supplies the pannage of England would afford other countries, what 
rich returns to itself, if it were not sliced out into male and female 
fripperies : and what a multitude of misemployed hands might be 
better improved in some more manly manufactures for the public 
weal. It is not easily credible, what may be said of the preter- 
pluralities of tailors in London : I have heard an honest man say, 
that not long since there were numbered between Temple-bar and 
Charing-Cross, eight thousand of that trade ; let it be conjectured 
by that proportion how many there are in and about London, and 
in all England they will appear to be very numerous. If the Par- 
liament would please to mend women, which their husbands dare 
not do, there need not so many men to make and mend as there 
are, I hope the present doleful estate of the realm will persuade 
more strongly to some considerate course herein than I now can. 

Knew I how to bring it in, I would speak a word to long hair, 
whereof I will say no more but this : if God proves not such a 
Barber to it as he threatens, unless it be amended, Esa. vii. 20, 
before the peace of the state and church be well settled, then let 
my prophecy be scorned, as a sound mind scorns the riot of that 
sin, and more it needs not. If those who are termed rattleheads 
and impuritans, would take up a resolution to begin in moderation 
of hair, to the just reproach of those that are called Puritans and 
Roundheads, I would honor their manliness as much as the others' 
godliness, so long as I knew what man or honor meant : if neither 
can find a barber's shop, let them turn in, to Psal. Ixviii. 21, 
Jer. vii. 29, i Cor. xi. 14. If it be thought no wisdom in men to 
distinguish themselves in the field by the scissors, let it be thought 
no injustice in God, not to distinguish them by the sword. I had 
rather God should know me by my sobriety, than mine enemy not 
know me by my vanity. He is ill kept, that is kept by his own sin. 
A short promise is a far safer guard than a long lock : it is an ill 
distinction which God is loath to look at, and his angels can not 
know his saints by. Though it be not the mark of the beast, yet 



COLONIAL PERIOD 33 

it may be the mark of a beast prepared to slaughter. I am sure 
men use not to wear such names ; I am also sure soldiers use to 
wear other marklets or notadoes in time of battle. 

IN PRAISE OF ANNE BRADSTREET 
Prefixed to "The Tenth Muse," 1650 

Mercury show'd Apollo, Bartas' book, 

Minerva this, and wish'd him well to look. 

And tell uprightly, which did which excel : 

He view'd and view'd, and vow'd he could not tell. 

They bid him hemisphere his mouldy nose. 

With 's crack'd leering glasses, for it would pose 

The best brains he had in 's old pudding-pan, 

Sex weigh 'd, which best, the woman or the man ? 

He peer'd, and por'd, and glar'd, and said for wore, 

I'm even as wise now, as I was before. 

They both 'gan laugh, and said, it was no mar'l 

The auth'ress was a right Du Bartas girl. 

Good sooth, quoth the old Don, tell me ye so, 

I muse whither at length these girls will go. 

It half revives my chill frost-bitten blood. 

To see a woman once do aught that 's good ; 

And chode by Chaucer's boots and Homer's furs, 

Let men look to 't, lest women wear the spurs. 



ANNE BRADSTREET 

[Born at Northampton, England, 161 2; died at Andover, Massachusetts, 
September 16, 1672] 

THE PROLOGUE 
From "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America" 

To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings, 
Of cities founded, commonwealths begun, 

For my mean pen are too superior things : 

Or how they all, or each, their dates have run. 



34 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Let poets and historians set these forth, 

My obscure Hnes shall not so dim their worth. 

But when my wondering eyes and envious heart 
Great Bartas' sugared lines do not read o'er, 

Fool I do grudge the Muses did not part 

'Twixt him and me that ever fluent store : — 

A Bartas can do what a Bartas will, 

But simple I according to my skill. 

From school-boys' tongue no rhetoric we expect. 
Not yet a sweet consort from broken strings. 

Nor perfect beauty where 's a main defect : 
My foolish, broken, blemished Muse so sings : 

And this to mend, alas, no art is able, 

'Cause nature made it so irreparable. 

Nor can I, like that fluent, sweet-tongued Greek 
Who lisped at first, in future time speak plain ; 

By art he gladly found what he did seek — 
A full requital of his striving pain ; 

Art can do much, but this maxim 's most sure : 

A weak or wounded brain admits no cure. 

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue 
Who says my hand a needle better fits ; 

A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong ; 
For such despite they cast on female wits ; 

If what I do prove well, it won't advance — 

They '11 say it 's stolen, or else it was by chance. 

But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild, 
Else of our sex why feigned they those nine, 

And Poesy made Calliope's own child ? 

So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine ; 

But this weak knot they will full soon untie — 

The Greeks did naught but play the fools and lie. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 35 

Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are. 

Men have precedency, and still excel, 
It is but vain unjustly to wage war : 

Men can do best, and women know it well ; 
Preeminence in all and each is yours — 
Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours. 

And oh, ye high flown quills that soar the skies. 
And ever with your prey still catch your praise. 

If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes. 
Give thyme or parsley wreath ; I ask no bays, 

This mean and unrefined ore of mine 

Will make you glistering gold, but more to shine. 



OF THE FOUR AGES OF MAN 

Lo, now four other act upon the stage, 

Childhood and Youth, the Manly and Old Age : 

The first son unto phlegm, grandchild to water, 

Unstable, supple, cold and moist 's his nature. 

The second, frolic, claims his pedigree 

From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. 

The third of fire and choler is compos'd, 

Vindicative and quarrelsome dispos'd. 

The last of earth and heavy melancholy. 

Solid, hating all lightness and all folly. 

Childhood was cloth'd in white and green to show 

His spring was intermixed with some snow : 

Upon his head nature a garland set 

Of Primrose, Daisy and the Violet. 

Such cold mean flowers the spring puts forth betime, 

Before the sun hath throughly heat the clime. 

His hobby striding did not ride but run, 

And in his hand an hour-glass new begun, 

In danger every moment of a fall. 

And when 't is broke then ends his life and all : 



36 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But if he hold till it have run its last, 

Then may he live out threescore years or past. 

Next Youth came up in gorgeous attire 

(As that fond age doth most of all desire), 

His suit of crimson and his scarf of green, 

His pride in 's countenance was quickly seen ; 

Garland of roses, pinks and gillyflowers 

Seemed on 's head to grow bedew'd with showers. 

His face as fresh as is Aurora fair, 

When blushing she first 'gins to light the air. 

No wooden horse, but one of mettle tried. 

He seems to fly or swim, and not to ride. 

Then prancing on the stage, about he wheels, 

But as he went death waited at his heels. 

The next came up in a much graver sort, 

As one that cared for a good report, 

His sword by 's side, and choler in his eyes. 

But neither us'd as yet, for he was wise ; 

Of Autumn's fruits a basket on his arm, 

His golden god in 's purse, which was his charm. 

And last of all to act upon this stage 

Leaning upon his staff came up Old Age, 

Under his arm a sheaf of wheat he bore, 

An harvest of the best, what needs he more ? 

In 's other hand a glass ev'n almost run, 

Thus writ about : " This out, then am I done." 



A LOVE-LETTER TO HER HUSBAND 
Froivi the Edition of 1678 

Phoebus make haste, the day 's too long, begone. 
The silent night 's the fittest time for moan ; 
But stay this once, unto my suit give ear. 
And tell my griefs in either Hemisphere : 
(And if the whirling of thy wheels don't drown'd 
The woful accents of my doleful sound). 



COLONIAL PERIOD 37 

If in thy swift career thou canst make stay, 

I crave this boon, this errand by the way : 

Commend me to the man more lov'd than hfe. 

Show him the sorrows of his widow'd wife. 

My dumpish thoughts, my groans, my brackish tears, 

My sobs, my longing hopes, my doubting fears, 

And, if he love, how can he there abide ? 

My interest 's more than all the world beside. 

He that can tell the stars or Ocean sand, 

Or all the grass that in the meads do stand. 

The leaves in th' woods, the hail or drpps of rain. 

Or in a cornfield number every grain, 

Or every mote that in the sunshine hops. 

May count my sighs and number all my drops. 

Tell him, the countless steps that thou dost trace. 

That once a day thy spouse thou mayst embrace ; 

And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth. 

Thy rays afar, salute her from the south. 

But for one month I see no day (poor soul) 

Like those far situate under the pole. 

Which day by day long wait for thy arise, 

O how they joy when thou dost light the skies. 

O Phoebus, hadst thou but thus long from thine 

Restrain 'd the beams of thy beloved shine, 

At thy return, if so thou couldst or durst. 

Behold a Chaos blacker than the first. 

Tell him here 's worse than a confused matter, 

His little world 's a fathom under water, 

Naught but the fervor of his ardent beams 

Hath power to dry the torrent of these streams. 

Tell him I would say more, but cannot well, 

Opressed minds abruptest tales do tell. 

Now post with double speed, mark what I say, 

By all our loves conjure him not to stay. 



38 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE AUTHOR TO HER BOOK 

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, 

Who after birth didst by my side remain 

Till snatched from thence by friends less wise than true 

Who thee abroad exposed to public view, 

Made thee, in rags, halting, to the press to trudge, 

Where errors were not lessened, all may judge. 

At thy return my blushing was not small. 

My rambling brat — in print — should mother call. 

I cast thee by as one unfit for light. 

Thy visage was so irksome in my sight ; 

Yet being mine own, at length affection would 

Thy blemishes amend, if so I could, 

I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, 

And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw. 

I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet. 

Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet. 

In better dress to trim thee was my mind. 

But naught save homespun cloth i' th' house I find. 

In this array 'mongst vulgars mayst thou roam. 

In critics' hands beware thou dost not come. 

And take thy way where yet thou art not known. 

If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none ; 

And for thy mother, she, alas, is poor. 

Which caused her thus to send thee out of door. 



FOR THE RESTORATION OF MY DEAR HUSBAND FROM 
A BURNING AGUE, JUNE, 1661 

When fears and sorrows me beset. 

Then didst thou rid me out ; 
When heart did faint and spirits quail, 

Thou comforts me about. 

Thou rais'st him up I feared to lose, 
Regav'st me him again ; 



COLONIAL PERIOD 39 

Distempers thou didst chase away, 
With strength didst him sustain. 

My thankful heart, with pen record 

The goodness of thy God : 
Let thy obedience testify 

He taught thee by his rod, 

And with his staff did thee support, 

That thou by both mayst learn, 
And 'twixt the good and evil way 

At last thou might'st discern. 

Praises to him who hath not left 

My soul as destitute, 
Nor turned his ear away from me. 

But granted hath my suit. 



EDWARD JOHNSON 

[Born at Heme Hill, Kent, England, about i 599 ; died at Woburn, 
Massachusetts, April 23, 1672] 

OF THE FIRST PREPARATION OF THE MERCHANT ADVEN- 
TURERS IN THE MASSACHUSETTS 

From the "Wonder-Working Providence," London, 1654, Chap. IX 

... At the place of their abode they began to build a Town, 
which is called Salem, after some little space of time having made 
trial of the sordid spirits of the neighboring Indians, the most bold 
among them began to gather to divers places, which they began to 
take up for their own ; those that were sent over servants, having 
itching desires after novelties, found a readier way to make an end 
of their masters' provisions, than they could find means to get more. 
They that came over their own men had but little left to feed on, 
and most began to repent when their strong beer and full cups ran 
as small as water in a large land, but little corn, and the poor Indians 



40 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

so far from relieving them, that they were forced to lengthen out 
their own food with acorns, and that which added to their present 
distracted thoughts, the ditch between England and their now place 
of abode was so wide, that they could not leap over with a lope-staff, 
yet some delighting their eye with the rarity of things present, and 
feeding their fancies with new discoveries at the Spring's approach, 
they made shift to rub out the Winter's cold by the fire-side, having 
fuel enough growing at their doors, turning down many a drop of the 
bottle, and burning tobacco with all the ease they could, discoursing 
between one while and another, of the great progress they would 
make after the Summer's-sun had changed the earths white furr'd 
gown into a green mantel. 

OF THE FIRST PROMOTION OF LEARNING IN NEW ENG- 
LAND AND THE EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCES THAT 
THE LORD WAS PLEASED TO SEND FOR FURTHERING OF 

THE SAME 

From Book II, Chap. XIX 

Toward the latter end of this summer came over the learned, . 
reverend, and judicious Mr. Henry Dunster, before whose coming 
the Lord was pleased to provide a patron for erecting a college, 
as you have formerly heard, his provident hand being now no less 
powerful in pointing out with his unerring finger a president abun- 
dantly fitted, this his servant, and sent him over for to manage the 
work. And as in all the other passages of this history the Wonder- 
working Providence of Sion's Saviour hath appeared, so more espe- 
cially in this work, the fountains of learning being in a great measure 
stopped in our native country at this time, so that the sweet waters 
of Shilo's streams must ordinarily pass into the churches through 
the stinking channel of prelatical pride, beside all the filth that the 
fountains themselves were daily encumbered withal, insomuch that 
the Lord turned aside often from them, and refused the breathings 
of his blessed Spirit among them, which caused Satan (in these latter 
days of his transformation into an angel of light) to make it a means 
to persuade people from the use of learning altogether, that so in 
the next generation they might be destitute of such helps as the 



COLONIAL PERIOD 41 

Lord hath been pleased hitherto to make use of, as chief means for 
the conversion of his people and building them up in the holy faith, 
as also for breaking down the Kingdom of Antichrist. And verily 
had not the Lord been pleased to furnish New England with means 
for the attainment of learning, the work would have been carried 
on very heavily, and the hearts of godly parents would have vanished 
away with heaviness for their poor children, whom they must have 
left in a desolate wilderness, destitute of the means of grace. 

It being a work (in the apprehension of all whose capacity could 
reach to the great sums of money the edifice of a mean college would 
cost) past the reach of a poor pilgrim people, who had expended the 
greatest part of their estates on a long voyage, travelling into foreign 
countries being unprofitable to any that have undertaken it, although 
it were but with their necessary attendance, whereas this people were 
forced to travel with wives, children, and servants ; besides they con- 
sidered the treble charge of building in this new populated desert, 
in regard of all kind of workmanship, knowing likewise, that young 
students could make up a poor progress in learning, by looking on 
the bare walls of their chambers, and that Diogenes would have the 
better of them by far, in making use of a tun to lodge in ; not being 
ignorant also, that many people in this age are out of conceit with 
learning, and that although they were not among a people who 
counted ignorance the mother of devotion, yet were the greater 
part of the people wholly devoted to the plough (but to speak up- 
rightly, hunger is sharp, and the head will retain little learning, if 
the heart be not refreshed in some competent measure with food, 
although the gross vapors of a glutted stomach are the bane of a 
bright understanding, and brings barrenness to the brain). But how 
to have both go on together, as yet they know not. Amidst all these 
difficulties, it was thought meet learning should plead for itself, and 
(as many other men of good rank and quality in this barren desert) 
plot out a way to live. Hereupon all those who had tasted the sweet 
wine of Wisdom's drawing, and fed on the dainties of knowledge, 
began to set their wits a work, and verily as the whole progress of 
this work had a farther dependency than on the present-eyed means, 
so at this time chiefly the end being firmly fixed on a sure founda- 
tion, namely, the glory of God and good of all his elect people the 



42 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

world throughout, in vindicating the truths of Christ and promoting 
his glorious Kingdom, who is now taking the heathen for his inheri- 
tance and the utmost ends of the earth for his possession, means 
they know there are, many thousand uneyed of mortal man, which 
every day's Providence brings forth. 

Upon these resolutions, to work they go, and with thankful ac- 
knowledgment readily take up all lawful means as they come to 
hand. For place they fix their eye upon New-Town, which to tell 
their posterity whence they came, is now named Cambridge. And 
withal to make the whole world understand that spiritual learning 
was the thing they chiefly desired, to sanctify the other and make 
the whole lump holy, and that learning being set upon its right 
object might not contend for error instead of truth, they chose this 
place, being then under the orthodox and soul-flourishing ministry 
of Mr. Thomas Shepard, of whom it may be said, without any 
wrong to others, the Lord by his Ministry hath saved many a hun- 
dred soul. The situation of this College is very pleasant, at the 
end of a spacious plain, more like a bowling-green than a wilder- 
ness, near a fair navigable river, environed with many neighboring 
towns of note, being so near, that their houses join with her sub- 
urbs. The building thought by some to be too gorgeous for a wil- 
derness, and yet too mean in others' apprehensions for a college, 
it is at present enlarging by purchase of the neighbor houses. It 
hath the conveniences of a fair hall, comfortable studies, and a 
good library, given by the liberal hand of some magistrates and 
ministers, with others. The chief gift towards the founding of this 
college was by Mr. John Harvard, a reverend minister; the country, 
being very weak in their public treasury, expended about ;!^5oo 
towards it, and for the maintenance thereof, gave the yearly rev- 
enue of a ferry passage between Boston and Charles-Town, the 
which amounts to about ^40 or ^50 per annum. The commis- 
sioners of the four united colonies also taking into consideration 
of what common concernment this work would be, not only to the 
whole plantations in general, but also to all our English Nation, 
they endeavored to stir up all the people in the several colonies 
to make a yearly contribution toward it, which by some is ob- 
served, but by the most very much neglected. The government 



COLONIAL PERIOD 43 

hath endeavored to grant them all the privileges fit for a college, 
and accordingly the Governor and magistrates, together with the 
President of the College for the time being, have a continual care 
of ordering all matters for the good of the whole. 

This college hath brought forth and nurst up very hopeful 
plants, to the supplying some churches here, as the gracious and 
godly Mr, Wilson, son to the grave and zealous servant of Christ, 
Mr. John Wilson; this young man is pastor to the Church of Christ 
at Dorchester; as also Mr. Buckly, son to the reverend Mr. Buckly, 
of Concord ; as also a second son of his, whom our native country 
hath now at present help in the ministry, and the other is over a 
people of Christ in one of these Colonies, and if I mistake not, 
England hath I hope not only this young man of New England 
nurturing up in learning, but many more, as Mr. Sam. and Na- 
thaniel Mathers, Mr. Wells, Mr. Downing, Mr. Barnard, Mr. Allin, 
Mr. Brewster, Mr. William Ames, Mr. Jones. Another of the 
first-fruits of this college is employed in these western parts in 
Mevis, one of the Summer Islands ; besides these named, some 
help hath been had from hence in the study of physic, as also the 
godly Mr. Sam. Danforth, who hath not only studied divinity, but 
also astronomy ; he put forth many almanacs, and is now called 
to the office of a teaching elder in the Church of Christ at Rox- 
bury, who was one of the fellows of this College. The number of 
students is much increased of late, so that the present year, 165 i, 
on the twelfth of the sixth month, ten of them took the degree of 
Bachelors of Art, among whom the Sea-born son of Mr. John 
Cotton was one. . , . 



44 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



JOHN ELIOT 

[Born at Nasing, Essex, England, 1 604 ; died at Roxbury, Massachusetts, 

May 20, 1690] 

SCANDAL AMONG THE CONVERTS 

From "A Late and Further Manifestation of the Progress of 
THE Gospel among the Lndians in New England " 

DECLARING THEIR CONSTANT LOVE AND ZEAL TO THE 
TRUTH WITH A READINESS TO GIVE ACCOUNT OF THEIR 
FAITH AND HOPE AS OF THEIR DESIRES IN CHURCH COM- 
MUNION TO BE PARTAKERS OF THE ORDINANCES OF CHRIST, 
BEING A NARRATIVE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE INDIANS 
ABOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE IN RELIGION BY THE ELDERS OF 
THE CHURCHES. RELATED BY MR. JOHN ELIOT, PUBLISHED 
BY THE CORPORATION, ESTABLISHED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT 
FOR PROPAGATING THE GOSPEL THERE. [LONDON, 1655] 

There fell out a very great discouragement a little before the 
time, which might have been a scandal unto them, and I doubt 
not but Satan intended it so ; but the Lord improved it to stir up 
faith and prayer, and so turned it another way. Thus it was : Three 
of the unsound sort of such as are among them that pray unto 
God, who are hemmed in by relations, and other means, to do 
that which their hearts love not, and whose vices Satan improveth 
to scandalize and reproach the better sort withal ; while many, and 
some good people are too ready to say they are all alike. I say 
three of them had gotten several quarts of strong water (which 
sundry out of a greedy desire of a litde gain, are too ready to sell 
unto them, to the offence and grief of the better sort of Indians, 
and of the godly English too), and with these liquors, did not only 
make themselves drunk, but got a child of eleven years of age, the 
son of Toteswamp, whom his father had sent for a little corn and 
fish to that place near Watertowne, where they were. Unto this 
child they first gave two spoonfuls of strongwater, which was more 
than his head could bear ; and another of them put a bottle, or 
such like vessel to his mouth, and caused him to drink till he was 
very drunk; and then one of them domineered, and said, '" Now 



COLONIAL PERIOD 45 

we will see whether your father will punish us for drunkenness 
(for he is a ruler among them) seeing you are drunk with us for 
company ; " and in this case lay the child abroad all night. They 
also fought, and had been several times punished formerly for 
drunkenness. 

When Toteswamp heard of this, it was a great shame and break- 
ing of heart unto him, and he knew not what to do. The rest of the 
rulers with him considered of the matter, they found a complication 
of many sins together. 

1. The sin of drunkenness, and that after many former punish- 
ments for the same. 

2. A wilful making of the child drunk, and exposing him to 
danger also. ' 

3. A degree of reproaching the rulers. 

4. Fighting. 

Word was brought to me of it, a little before I took horse to go to 
Natick to keep the Sabbath with them, being about ten days before 
the appointed meeting. The tidings sunk my spirit extremely, I 
did judge it to be the greatest frown of God that ever I met withal 
in the work, I could read nothing in it but displeasure, I began to 
doubt about our intended work : I knew not what to do, the black- 
ness of the sins, and the persons reflected on, made my very heart 
fail me. For one of the offenders (though least in the offence) was 
he that hath been my interpreter, whom I have used in translating 
a good part of the Holy Scriptures ; and in that respect I saw 
much of Satan's venom, and in God I saw displeasure. For this 
and some other acts of apostasy at this time, I had thoughts of 
casting him off from that work, yet now the Lord hath found a 
way to humble him. But his apostasy at this time was a great trial, 
and I did lay him by for that day of our examination, I used an- 
other in his room. Thus Satan aimed at me in this their miscarry- 
ing ; and Toteswamp is a principal man in the work, as you shall 
have occasion to see anon, God willing. 

By some occasion our ruling elder and I being together, I opened 
the case unto him, and the Lord guided him to speak some gracious 
words of encouragement unto me, by which the Lord did relieve 
my spirit ; and so I committed the matter and issue unto the Lord, 



46 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

to do what pleased him, and in so doing my soul was quiet in the 
Lord. I went on my journey being the sixth day of the week ; 
when I came at Natick, the rulers had then a court about it. Soon 
after I came there, the rulers came to me with a question about 
this matter, they related the whole business unto me, with much 
trouble and grief. 

Then Toteswamp spake to this purpose, " I am greatly grieved 
about these things, and now God trieth me whether I love Christ 
or my child best. They, say they will try me ; but I say God will 
try me. Christ saith, He that loveth father, or mother, or wife, or 
child, better than me, is not worthy of me. Christ saith, I must 
correct my child, if I should refuse to do that, I should not love 
Christ. God bid Abraham kill his son, Abraham loved God, and 
therefore he would have done it, had not God withheld him. God 
saith to me, only punish your child, and how can I love God, if I 
should refuse to do that .? " These things he spake in more words, 
and much affection, and not with dry eyes. Nor could I refrain 
from tears to hear him. When it was said, The child was not so 
guilty of the sin, as those that made him drunk ; he said, that he 
was guilty of sin, in that he feared not sin, and in that he did not 
believe his councils that he had often given him, to take heed of 
evil company ; but he had believed Satan and sinners more than 
him, therefore he needed to be punished. After other such like 
discourse, the rulers left me, and went unto their business, which 
they were about before I came, which they did bring unto this 
conclusion and judgment. They judged the three men to sit in the 
stocks a good space of time, and thence to be brought to the 
whipping-post, and have each of them twenty lashes. The boy to 
be put in the stocks a little while, and the next day his father 
was to whip him in the school, before the children there ; all which 
judgment was executed. When they came to be whipped, the con- 
stable fetched them one after another to the tree (which they make 
use of instead of a post) where they all received their punishments : 
which done, the rulers spake thus, one of them said, " The punish- 
ments for sin are the Commandments of God, and the work of 
God, and his end was, to do them good, and bring them to repent- 
ance." And upon that ground he did in more words exhort them 



COLONIAL PERIOD 47 

to repentance, and amendment of life. When he had done, another 
spake unto them to this purpose, " You are taught in catechism, 
that the wages of sin are all miseries and calamities in this life, and 
also death and eternal damnation in hell. Now you feel some smart 
as the fruit of your sin, and this is to bring you to repentance, that 
so you may escape the rest." And in more words he exhorted them 
to repentance. When he had done, another spake to this purpose, 
'" Hear all ye people " (turning himself to the people who stood 
round about, I think not less than two hundred, small and great) 
" this is the commandment of the Lord, that thus it should be done 
unto sinners ; and therefore let all take warning by this, that you 
commit not such sins, lest you incur these punishments." And 
with more words he exhorted the people. Others of the rulers 
spake also, but some things spoken I understood not, and some 
things slipped from me. But these which I have related remained 
with me. 

When I returned to Roxbury, I related these things to our elder, 
to whom I had before related the sin, and my grief : who was much 
affected to hear it, and magnified God. He said also. That their 
sin was but a transient act, which had no rule, and would vanish. 
But these judgments were an ordinance of God, and would remain, 
and do more good every way, than their sin could do hurt, telling 
me what cause I had to be thankful for such an issue. Which I 
therefore relate, because the Lord did speak to my heart, in this 
exigent, by his words. 



MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH 

[Born in England, 1631 ; died at Maiden, MassachuseUs, June 10, 1705] 

THE DAY OF DOOM 
INTRODUCTION: TO THE CHRISTIAN READER 

Reader, I am a fool 

And have adventured 

To play the fool this once for Christ, 

The more his fame to spread. 



48 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

If this my foolishness 
Help thee to be more wise, 
I have attained what I seek, 
And what I only prize. 

Thou wonderest, perhaps, 

That I in print appear, 

Who to the pulpit dwell so nigh, 

Yet come so seldom there. 

The God of Heaven knows 

What grief to me it is. 

To be withheld from serving Christ ; 

No sorrow like to this. 

This is the sorest pain 

That I have felt or feel ; 

Yet have I stood some shocks that might 

Make stronger men to reel. 

I find more true delight 

In serving of the Lord, 

Than all the good things upon Earth, 

Without it, can afford. 

And could my strength endure 
That work I count so dear, 
Not all the riches of Peru 
Should hire me to forbear. 
But I'm a prisoner. 
Under a heavy chain ; 
Almighty God's afflicting hand 
Doth me by force restrain. 

Yet some (/ knoiv) do judge 

Mine inability 

To come abroad and do Christ's work. 

To be melancholy ; 

And that I'm not so weak 

As I myself conceit ; 



COLONIAL PERIOD 49 

But who in other things have found 
Me so conceited yet ? 

Or who of all my friends 
That have my trials seen, 
Can tell the time in. seven years 
When I have dumpish been ? 
Some think my voice is strong, 
Most times when I do preach ; 
But ten days after, what I feel 
And suffer few can reach. 

My prison 'd thoughts break forth. 
When open'd is the door, 
With greater force and violence, 
And strain my voice the more. 
But vainly do they tell 
That I am growing stronger, 
Who hear me speak in half an hour, 
Till I can speak no longer. 

Some for because they see not 

My cheerfulness to fail. 

Nor that I am disconsolate, 

Do think I nothing ail. 

If they had borne my griefs, 

Their courage might have fail'd them,^ 

And all the town (perhaps) have known 

(Once and again) what ail'd them. 

But why should I complain 

That have so good a God, 

That doth mine heart with comfort fill 

Ev'n whilst I feel his rod ? 

In God I have been strong. 

But wearied and worn out. 

And joy'd in him, when twenty woes 

Assail'd me round about. 



so READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Nor speak I this to boast, 

But make apology 

For mine own self, and answer those 

That fail in charity. 

I am, alas ! as frail. 

Impatient a creature, 

As most that tread upon the ground, 

And have as bad a nature. 

Let God be magnified. 
Whose everlasting strength 
Upholds me under sufferings 
Of more than ten years' length ; 
Through whose Almighty pow'r. 
Although I am surrounded 
With sorrows more than can be told, 
Yet am I not confounded. 

For his dear sake have I 
This service undertaken. 
For I am bound to honor him 
Who hath not me forsaken. 
I am a debtor, too. 
Unto the sons of men. 
Whom, wanting other means, I would 
Advantage with my pen. 
• 

I would, but ah ! my strength, 
When tried, proves so small. 
That to the ground without effect 
My wishes often fall. 
Weak heads, and hands, and states, 
Great things cannot produce ; 
And therefore I this little piece 
Have publish'd for thine use. 

Although the thing be small, 
Yet my good will therein 



COLONIAL PERIOD 51 

Is nothing less than if it had 

A larger volume been. 

Accept it then in love, 

And read it for thy good ; 

There's nothing in't can do thee hurt, 

If rightly understood. 

The God of Heaven grant 

These lines so well to speed, 

That thou the things of thine own peace 

Through them may'st better heed ; 

And may'st be stirred up 

To stand upon thy guard. 

That Death and Judgment may not come 

To find thee unprepar'd. 

Oh, get a part in Christ, 

And make the Judge thy friend ; 

So shalt thou be assured of 

A happy, glorious end. 

Thus prays thy real friend 

And servant for Christ's sake. 

Who, had he strength, would not refuse 

More pains for thee to take. 



THE BURWELL PAPERS 

BACON'S DEATH 

An Anonymous " History of Bacon's and Ingram's Rebellion," first 
printed by the massachusetts historical society, 1814 

Bacon having for some time been besieged by sickness, and now 
not able to hold out any longer, all his strength and provisions be- 
ing spent, surrendered up that fort he was no longer able to keep, 
into the hands of that grim and all-conquering captain. Death, after 
that he had implored the assistance of the above-mentioned minister, 
for the well making his articles of rendition. The only religious 



52 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

duty (as they say) he was observed to perform during these intrigues 
of affairs, in which he was so considerable an actor, and so much 
concerned, that rather than he would decline the cause, he became 
so deeply engaged in the first rise thereof, though much urged by 
arguments of dehortations by his nearest relations and best friends, 
that he subjected himself to all those inconveniences that, singly, 
might bring a man of a more robust frame to his last home. After 
he was dead he was bemoaned in these following lines (drawn by the 
man that waited upon his person, as it is said), and who attended 
his corpse to their burial place, but where deposited till the general 
day, not known, only to those who are resolutely silent in that par- 
ticular. There was many copies of verses made after his departure, 
calculated to the latitude of their affections who composed them ; 
as a relish taken from both appetites I have here sent you a couple : 

BACON'S EPITAPH, MADE BY HIS MAN 

Death, why so cruel .'' What ! no other way 
To manifest thy spleen, but thus to slay 
Our hopes of safety, liberty, our all. 
Which, through thy tyranny, with him must fall 
To its late chaos .'' Had thy rigid force 
Been dealt by retail, and not thus in gross, 
Grief had been silent. Now we must complain. 
Since thou, in him, hast more than thousand slain, 
Whose lives and safeties did so much depend 
On him their life, with him their lives must end. 

If 't be a sin to think Death brib'd can be 
We must be guilty ; say 't was bribery 
Guided the fatal shaft. Virginia's foes. 
To whom for secret crimes just vengeance owes 
Deserved plagues, dreading their just desert, 
Corrupted Death by Paracelsian art 
Him to destroy ; whose well tried courage such, 
Their heartless hearts, nor arms, nor strength could touch. 

Who now must heal those wounds, or stop that blood 
The Heathen made, and drew into a flood ? 



COLONIAL PERIOD 53 

Who is 't must plead our cause ? nor trump, nor drum 

Nor Deputation ; these, alas ! are dumb 

And cannot speak. Our Arms (though ne'er so strong) 

Will want the aid of his commanding tongue, 

Which conquer'd more than Cassar. He o'erthrew 

Only the outward frame : this could subdue 

The rugged works of nature. Souls replete 

With dull chill cold, he'd animate with heat 

Drawn forth of reason's limbec. In a word, 

Mars and Minerva both in him concurred 

For arts, for arms, whose pen and sword alike 

As Cato's did, may admiration strike 

Into his foes ; while they confess withal 

It was their guilt styl'd him a criminal. 

Only this difference does from truth proceed : 

They in the guilt, he in the name must bleed. 

While none shall dare his obsequies to sing 

In deserv'd measures ; until time shall bring 

Truth crown 'd with freedom, and from danger free 

To sound his praises to posterity. 

Here let him rest ; while we this truth report 
He's gone from hence unto a higher Court 
To plead his cause, where he by this doth know 
Whether to Caesar he was friend, or foe. 

LOVEWELL'S FIGHT 
A Popular Ballad written shortly after the Battle of May 8, 1 725 

Of worthy Captain Lovewell, I purpose now to sing, 
How valiantly he served his country and his King ; 
He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide, 
'And hardships they endured to quell the Indian's pride. 

'T was nigh unto Pigwacket, on the eighth day of May, 
They spied a rebel Indian soon after break of day ; 
He on a bank was walking, upon a neck of land. 
Which leads into a pond as we 're made to understand. 



54 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Our men resolved to have him, and travelled two miles round, 
Until they met the Indian, who boldly stood his ground ; 
Then up speaks Captain Lovewell, "Take you good heed," says he, 
" This rogue is to decoy us, I very plainly see. 

" The Indians lie in ambush, in some place nigh at hand, 
In order to surround us upon this neck of land ; 
Therefore we '11 march in order, and each man leave his pack ; 
That we may briskly fight them when they make their attack." 

They came unto this Indian, who did them thus defy. 
As soon as they came nigh him, two guns he did let fly. 
Which wounded Captain Lovewell, and likewise one man more, 
But when this rogue was running, they laid him in his gore. 

Then having scalped the Indian, they went back to the spot. 
Where they had laid their packs down, but there they found them 

not, 
For the Indians having spied them, when they them down did lay, 
Did seize them for their plunder, and carry them away. 

These rebels lay in ambush, this very place hard by. 

So that an English soldier did one of them espy. 

And cried out, " Here's an Indian " ; with that they started out, 

As fiercely as old lions, and hideously did shout. 

With that our valiant English all gave a loud huzza, 
To show the rebel Indians they feared them not a straw : 
So now the fight began, and as fiercely as could be. 
The Indians ran up to them, but soon were forced to flee. 

Then spake up Captain Lovewell, when first the fight began, 
" Fight on my valiant heroes ! you see they fall like rain." 
For as we are informed, the Indians were so thick, 
A man could scarcely fire a gun and not some of them hit. 

Then did the rebels try their best our soldiers to surround. 
But they could not accomplish it, because there was a pond. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 55 

To which our men retreated and covered all the rear, 

The rogues were forced to flee them, although they skulked for fear. 

Two logs there were behind them that close together lay. 
Without being discovered, they could not get away ; 
Therefore our valiant English they travelled in a row. 
And at a handsome distance as they were wont to go. 

'T was ten o'clock in the morning when first the fight begun. 
And fiercely did continue until the setting sun ; 
Excepting that the Indians some hours before 't was night, 
Drew off into the bushes and ceased awhile to fight. 

But soon again returned, in fierce and furious mood, 
Shouting as in the morning, but yet not half so loud ; 
-For as we are informed, so thick and fast they fell. 
Scarce twenty of their number at night did get home well. 

And that our valiant English till midnight there did stay, 
To see whether the rebels would have another fray ; 
But they no more returning, they made off towards their home, 
And brought away their wounded as far as they could come. 

Of all our valiant English there were but thirty-four. 

And of the rebel Indians there were about fourscore. 

And sixteen of our English did safely home return. 

The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn. 

Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die. 
They killed Lieut. Robbins, and wounded good young Frye, 
Who was our English Chaplain ; he many Indians slew, 
And some of them he scalped when bullets round him flew. 

Young Fullam too I '11 mention, because he fought so well. 
Endeavoring to save a man, a sacrifice he fell : 
But yet our valiant Englishmen in fight were ne'er dismayed, 
But still they kept their motion, and Wyman's Captain made, 



56 RKADINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Who shot the old chief Paugus, which did the foe defeat, 
Then set his men in order, and brought off the retreat ; 
And braving many dangers and hardships by the way, 
They safe arrived at Dunstable, the thirteenth day of May. 



MARY ROWLANDSON 

[Flourished in the year 1682] 

ATTACK BY INDIANS 

From " Narrative of the Captivity and Restouration of 
Mrs. Mary Roulandson," 1682 

At length they came and beset our house, [at Lancaster, Feb- 
ruary 10, 1675, O. S.] and quickly it was the dolefulest day that 
ever mine eyes saw. The house stood upon the edge of a hill ; 
some of the Indians got behind the hill, others into the barn, and 
others behind anything that would shelter them ; from all which 
places they shot against the house, so that the bullets seemed to 
fly like hail, and quickly they wounded one man among us, then 
another, then a third. About two hours (according to my observa- 
tion in that amazing time) they had been about the house before 
they prevailed to fire it, (which they did with flax and hemp which 
they brought out of the barn, and there being no defence about the 
house, only two flankers at two opposite corners, and one of them 
not finished) they fired it once, and one ventured out and quenched 
it, but they quickly fired it again, and that took. Now is the dread- 
ful hour come that I have often heard of (in time of the war, as it 
was the case of others) but now mine eyes see it. Some in our house 
were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in blood, the house 
on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us 
on the head if we stirred out. Now might we hear mothers and 
children crying out for themselves and one another. Lord, what 
shall we do ! Then I took my children (and one of my sisters hers) 
to go forth and leave the house : but, as soon as we came to the 
door and appeared, the Indians shot so thick that the bullets rattled 
against the house as if one had taken a handful of stones and threw 



COLONIAL PERIOD 57 

them, so that we were forced to give back. We had six stout dogs 
belonging to our garrison, but none of them would stir, though at 
another time if an Indian had come to the door, they were ready 
to fly upon him and tear him down. The Lord hereby would make 
us the more to acknowledge his hand, and to see that our help is 
always in him. But out we must go, the fire increasing, and coming 
along behind us roaring, and the Indians gaping before us with their 
guns, spears, and hatchets to devour us. No sooner were we out 
of the house, but my brother-in-law (being before wounded in de- 
fending the house, in or near the throat) fell down dead, whereat 
the Indians scornfully shouted and hallowed, and were presently 
upon him, stripping off his clothes. The bullets flying thick, one 
went through my side, and the same (as would seem) through the 
bowels and hand of my poor child in my arms. One of my elder 
sister's children (named William) had then his leg broke, which 
the Indians perceiving they knocked him on the head. Thus were 
we butchered by those merciless heathens, standing amazed, with 
the blood running down to our heels. My eldest sister being yet 
in the house, and seeing those woful sights, the infidels hauling 
mothers one way and children another, and some wallowing in their 
blood; and her eldest son telling her that her son William was 
dead, and myself was wounded, she said, " and Lord, let me die 
with them ; " which was no sooner said, but she- was struck with 
a bullet, and fell down dead over the threshold. I hope she is 
reaping the fruit of her good labors, being faithful to the service 
of God in her place. . , . 

HER EXPERIENCES IN CAPTIVITY 

I had often before this said, that if the Indians should come, 
I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but 
when it came to the trial, my mind changed ; their glittering 
weapons so daunted my spirit, that I chose rather to go along with 
those (as I may say) ravenous bears, than that moment to end 
my days. And that I may the better declare what happened to 
me during that grievous captivity, I shall particularly speak of the 
several Removes we had up and down the wilderness. 



58 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE FIRST REMOVE 

Now away wc must go with those barbarous creatures, with our 
bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our 
bodies. About a mile we went that night, up upon a hill, within 
sight of the town, where we intended to lodge. There was hard 
by a vacant house (deserted by the English before, for fear of the 
Indians) ; I asked them whether I might not lodge in the house 
that night.? to which they answered, "What, will you love Eng- 
lishmen still ? " This was the dolefulest night that ever my eyes 
saw. Oh, the roaring and singing, and dancing, and yelling of 
those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively 
resemblance of hell. And miserable was the waste that was there 
made, of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, calves, lambs, roasting pigs, 
and fowls (which they had plundered in the town), some roasting, 
some lying and burning, and some boiling, to feed our merciless 
enemies ; who were joyful enough, though we were disconsolate. 
To add to the dolefulness of the former day, and the dismalness 
of the present night, my thoughts ran upon my losses and sad, 
bereaved condition. All was gone, my husband gone (at least sepa- 
rated from me, he being in the Bay ; and to add to my grief, the 
Indians told me they would kill him as he came homeward), my 
children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home, 
and all our comforts within door and without, all was gone (except 
my life), and I knew not but the next moment that might go too. 

There remained nothing to me but one poor, wounded babe, and 
it seemed at present worse than death, that it was in such a pitiful 
condition, bespeaking compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, 
nor suitable things to revive it. Little do many think, what is the 
savageness and brutishness of this barbarous enemy, those even 
that seem to profess more than others among them, when the 
English have fallen into their hands. . . . 

THE SECOND REMOVE 

But now (the next morning) I must turn my back upon the town, 
and travel with them into the vast and desolate wilderness, I know 
not whither. It is not my tongue or pen can express the sorrows 



COLONIAL PERIOD 59 

of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit, that I had at this depar- 
ture ; but God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me 
along and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail. One of 
the Indians carried my poor wounded babe upon a horse ; it went 
moaning all along: "I shall die, I shall die." I went on foot after 
it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed. At length I took it off 
the horse, and carried it in my arms, till my strength failed and I 
fell down with it. Then they set me upon a horse with my wounded 
child in my lap, and there being no furniture on the horse's back, 
as we were going down a steep hill, we both fell over the horse's 
head, at which they, like inhuman creatures, laughed, and rejoiced 
to see it, though I thought we should there have ended our days, 
overcome with so many difficulties. But the Lord renewed my 
strength still, and carried me along, that I might see more of his 
power, yea so much that I could never have thought of, had I not 
experienced it. . . . 



COTTON MATHER 

[Born at Boston, Massachusetts, February 12, 1663 ; died at Boston, 
February 13, 172S] 

THE ORIGIN OF WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND- 
From "The Wonders of the Invisible World," 1693 

We have been advised by some credible Christians yet alive, 
that a malefactor, accused of witchcraft as well as murder, and 
executed in this place more than forty years ago, did then give 
notice of an horrible plot against the country by witchcraft, and a 
foundation of witchcraft then laid, which if it were not seasonably 
discovered would probably blow up and pull down all the churches 
in the country. And we have now with horror seen the discovery 
of such a witchcraft ! An army of devils is horribly broke in upon 
the place which is the centre, and, after a sort, the first-born of 
our English settlements ; and the houses of the good people there 
are fill'd with the doleful shrieks of their children and servants, 
tormented by invisible hands, with tortures altogether preternatural. 



6o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

After the mischiefs there endeavored, and since in part conquered, 
the terrible plague, of evil angels, hath made its progress into 
some other places, where other persons have been in like manner 
diabolically handled. These our poor afflicted neighbors, quickly 
after they become infected and infested with these daemons, ar- 
rive to a capacity of discerning those which they conceive the 
shapes of their troulDJers ; and notwithstanding the great and just 
suspicion, that the daemons might impose the shapes of innocent 
persons in their spectral exhibitions upon the sufferers (which 
may perhaps prove no small part of the witch-plot in the issue), 
yet many of the persons thus represented being examined, sev- 
eral of them have been convicted of a very damnable witchcraft. 
Yea, more than one twenty have confessed that they have signed 
unto a book which the devil show'd them, and engaged in his 
hellish design of bewitching and ruining our land. We know not, 
at least I know not, how far the delusions of Satan may be inter- 
woven into some circumstances of the confessions ; but one would 
think all the rules of understanding human affairs are at an end, 
if after so many most voluntary harmonious confessions, made by 
intelligent persons of all ages, in sundry towns, at several times, 
we must not believe the main strokes wherein those confessions 
all agree ; especially when we have a thousand preternatural things 
every day before our eyes, wherein the confessors do acknowledge 
their concernment, and give demonstration of their being so con- 
cerned. If the devils now can strike the minds of men with any 
poisons of so fine a composition and operation, that scores of inno- 
cent people shall unite in confessions of a crime which we see 
actually committed, it is a thing prodigious, beyond the wonders 
of the former ages, and it threatens no less than a sort of dissolu- 
tion upon the world. Now, by these confessions 't is agreed that 
the devil has made a dreadful knot of witches in the country, and 
by the help of witches has dreadfully increased that knot ; that 
these witches have driven a trade commissioning their confederate 
spirits, to do all sorts of mischiefs to the neighbors, whereupon 
there have ensued such mischievous consequences upon the bodies 
and estates of the neighborhood, as could not otherwise be ac- 
counted for. Yea, that at prodigious witch-meetings, the wretches 



COLONIAL PERIOD 6l 

have proceeded so far as to concert and consult the methods of 
rooting out the Christian rehgion from this country, and setting 
up instead of it, perhaps a more gross diaboHsm than ever the 
world saw before. And yet it will be a thing little short of miracle, 
if in so spread a business as this, the devil should not get in some 
of his juggles to confound the discovery of all the rest. . . . 

SOME OF THE EVIDENCE GIVEN AT THE WITCH TRIALS 

From the Same 

FROM THE TRIAL OF GEORGE BURROUGHS 

Glad should I have been if I had never known the name of this 
man ; or never had this occasion to mention so much as the first 
letters of his name. But the government requiring some account 
of his trial to be inserted in this book, it becomes me with all 
obedience to submit unto the order. 

This G. B. was indicted for witch-craft, and in the prosecution 
of the charge against him he was accused by five or six of the be- 
witched, as the author of their miseries ; he was accused by eight 
of the confessing witches, as being a head actor at some of their 
hellish randezvouzes, and one who had the promise of being a king 
in Satan's kingdom, now going to be erected. He was accused by 
nine persons for extraordinary lifting, and such feats of strength 
as could not be done without a diabolical assistance. And for other 
such things he was accused, until about thirty testimonies were 
brought in against him ; nor were these judg'd the half of what 
might have been considered for his conviction. However they 
were enough to fix the character of a witch upon him according 
to the rules of reasoning, by the judicious Gaule, in that case 
directed. . . . 

The testimonies of the other sufferers concurred with these ; 
and it was remarkable that, whereas biting was one of the ways 
which the witches used for the vexing of the sufferers, when they 
cry'd out of G. B. biting them, the print of the teeth would be 
seen on the flesh of the complainers, and just such a set of teeth 
as G. B.'s would then appear upon them, which could be distin- 
guished from those of some other men's. Others of them testified 



62 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

that in their torments G. B. tempted them to go unto a sacrament, 
unto which they perceived him with a sound of trumpet summon- 
ing of other witches, who quickly after the sound would come from 
all quarters unto the rendezvous. One of them falling into a kind 
of trance affirmed that G. B. had carried her away into a very high 
mountain, where he shewed her mighty and glorious kingdoms, 
and said, " He would give them all to her, if she would write in 
his book " ; but she told him, " They were none of his to give " ; 
and refused the motions ; enduring of much misery for that refusal. 

It cost the Court a wonderful deal of trouble, to hear the testi- 
monies of the sufferers ; for when they were going to give in their 
depositions, they would for a long time be taken with fits that made 
them uncapable of saying any thing. The chief judge asked the 
prisoner, who he thought hindered these witnesses from giving 
their testimonies. And he answered, " He supposed it was the 
devil." That honorable person replied, " How comes the devil 
then to be so loath to have any testimony borne against you .? " 
Which cast him into very great confusion, . , , 

Accordingly several of the bewitched had given in their testi- 
mony, that they had been troubled with the apparitions of two 
women, who said that they were G. B.'s two wives, and that he 
had been the death of them ; and that the magistrates must be 
told of it, before whom if B. upon his trial denied it, that they 
did not know but that they should appear again in court. Now 
G. B. had been infamous for the barbarous usage of his two late 
wives, all the country over. Moreover, it was testified, the spectre 
of G. B. threatening of the sufferers told them he had killed 
(besides others) Mrs. Lawson and her daughter Ann. And it was 
noted, that these were the virtuous wife and daughter of one at 
whom this G. B. might have a prejudice for his being serviceable 
at Salem Village, from whence himself had in ill terms removed 
some years before ; and that when they died, which was long since, 
there were some odd circumstances about them, which made some 
of the attendants there suspect something of witch-craft, though 
none imagined from what quarter it should come. 

Well, G. B. being now upon his trial, one of the bewitched 
persons was cast into horror at the ghost of B's two deceased 



COLONIAL PERIOD 63 

wives then appearing before him, and crying for vengeance against 
him. Hereupon several of the bewitched persons were successively 
called in, who all, not knowing what the former had seen and said, 
concurred in their horror of the apparition, which they affirmed 
that he had before him. But he, though much appalled, utterly 
deny'd that he discern'd any thing of it ; nor was it any part of 
his conviction. . . . 

A famous divine recites this among the convictions of a witch : 
" The testimony of the party bewitched, whether pining or dying ; 
together with the joint oaths of sufficient persons that have seen 
certain prodigious pranks or feats wrought by the party accused." 
Now, God had been pleased so to leave this G. B, that he had 
ensnared himself by several instances, which he had formerly given 
of a preternatural strength, and which were now produced against 
him. He was a very puny man, yet he had often done things 
beyond the strength of a giant. A gun of about seven foot barrel, 
and so heavy that strong men could not steadily hold it out with 
both hands ; there were several testimonies, given in by persons 
of credit and honor, that he made nothing of taking up such a 
gun behind the lock with but one hand, and holding it out like 
a pistol at arms-end. G. B. in his vindication was so foolish as 
to say, " That an Indian was there, and held it out at the same 
time." Whereas none of the spectators ever saw any such Indian ; 
but they supposed, the " Black Man " (as the witches call the devil ; 
and they generally say he resembles an Indian) might give him 
that assistance. There was evidence likewise brought in, that he 
made nothing of taking up whole barrels fill'd with molasses or 
cider in very disadvantageous postures and carrying of them through 
the difficultest places out of a canoe to the shore. 

Yea, there were two testimonies, that G. B. with only putting 
the forefinger of his right hand into the muzzle of an heavy 
gun, a fowling-piece of about six or seven foot barrel, did lift up 
the gun, and hold it out at arms-end ; a gun which the depo- 
nents thought strong men could not with both hands lift up and 
hold out at the butt-end, as is usual. Indeed, one of these wit- 
nesses was over-persuaded by some persons to be out of the way 
upon G. B.'s trial ; but he came afterwards with sorrow for his 



64 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

withdraw [al], and gave in his testimony. Nor were either of these 
witnesses made use of as evidences in the trial. . . . 

Faltering, faulty, unconstant, and contrary answers upon judicial 
and deliberate examination, are counted some unlucky symptoms 
of guilt, in all crimes, especially in witchcrafts. Now there never 
was a prisoner more eminent for them than G. B. both at his 
examination and on his trial. His tergiversations, contradictions, 
and falsehoods were very sensible. He had little to say, but that 
he had heard some things that he could not prove, reflecting upon 
the reputation of some of the witnesses. 

Only he gave in a paper to the jury ; wherein, although he had 
many times before granted, not only that there are witches, but 
also that the present sufferings of the country are the effects of 
horrible witchcrafts, yet he now goes to evince it, " That there 
neither are, nor ever were witches, that having made a compact 
with the devil can send a devil to torment other people at a dis- 
tance." This paper was transcribed out of Ady ; which the Court 
presently knew, as soon as they heard it. But he said, he had 
taken none of it out of any book ; for which his evasion after- 
wards was, that a gentleman gave him the discourse in a manu- 
script, from whence he transcribed it. 

The jury brought him in guilty. But when he came to die, he 
utterly denied the fact whereof he had been thus convicted. 

FROM THE TRIAL OF MARTHA CARRIER 

Martha Carrier was indicted for the bewitching certain persons, 
according to the form usual in such cases pleading not guilty to 
her indictment ; there were first brought in a considerable number 
of the bewitched persons ; who not only made the court sensible 
of a horrid witchcraft committed upon them, but also deposed that 
it was Martha Carrier or her shape that grievously tormented them 
by biting, pricking, pinching and choking of them. It was further 
deposed that while this Carrier was on her examination before the 
magistrates, the poor people were so tortured that every one ex- 
pected their death upon the very spot, but that upon the binding 
of Carrier they were eased. Moreover the look of Carrier then 
laid the afflicted people for dead ; and her touch, if her eye at the 



COLONIAL PERIOD 65 

same time were off them, raised them again. Which things were 
also now seen upon her trial. And it was testified, that upon the 
mention of some having their necks twisted almost round by the 
shape of this Carrier, she replied, " It 's no matter though their 
necks had been twisted quite off." 

Before the trial of this prisoner several of her own children had 
frankly and fully confessed, not only that they were witches them- 
selves, but that this their mother had made them so. This con- 
fession they made with great shews of repentance, and with much 
demonstration of truth. They related place, time, occasion ; they 
gave an account of journeys, meetings and mischiefs by them per- 
formed, and were very credible in what they said. Nevertheless, 
this evidence was not produced against the prisoner at the bar, 
inasmuch as there was other evidence enough to proceed upon, . , . 

Allin Toothaker testify 'd that Richard, the son of Martha Car- 
rier, having some difference with him, pull'd him down by the 
hair of the head. When he rose again he was going to strike at 
Richard Carrier ; but fell down fiat on his back to the ground and 
had not power to stir hand or foot, until he told Carrier he yielded ; 
and then he saw the shape of Martha Carrier go off his breast. 

This Toothaker had received a wound in the wars ; and he now 
testify'd that Martha Carrier told him he should never be cured. 
Just afore the apprehending of Carrier, he could thrust a knitting 
needle into his wound, four inches deep ; but presently after her 
being seized, he was thoroughly healed, , , , 

One Foster, who confessed her own share in the witchcraft for 
which the prisoner stood indicted, affirmed that she had seen the 
prisoner at some of their witch meetings, and that it was this 
Carrier, who persuaded her to be a witch. She confess'd, that the 
devil carry'd them on a pole to a witch-meeting ; but the pole 
broke, and she hanging about Carrier's neck, they both fell down, 
and she then received an hurt by the fall whereof she was not 
at this very time recovered. . , , 

In the time of this prisoner's trial, one Susanna Sheldon in 
open court had her hands unaccountably ty'd together with a wheel- 
band, so fast that without cutting it could not be loosed. It was 
done by a spectre ; and the sufferer affirm'd it was the prisoner's. 



66 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Memorandum. This rampant hag, Martha Carrier, was the 
person, of whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own 
children among the rest, agreed, that the devil had promised her 
she should be Oueen of Hell. 



SAMUEL SEWALL 

[Born at Bishopstoke, England, March 28, 1652; died at Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, January i, 1730] 

FROM THE DIARY OF SAMUEL SEWALL 
DISCIPLINE AT HARVARD 

Monday, June 15, 1674. . . . Thomas Sargeant was examined 
by the Corporation : finally, the advice of Mr. Danforth, Mr. 
Stoughton, Mr. Thatcher, Mr. Mather {then present) was taken. 
This was his sentence. 

That being convicted of speaking blasphemous words concerning 
the H. G. he should be therefore publicly whipped before all the 
Scholars, 2. That he should be suspended as to taking his degree 
of Bachelor (this sentence read before him twice at the Prts. before 
this committee, and in the library i up before execution.) 3. Sit 
alone by himself in the Hall uncovered at meals, during the pleasure 
of the President and Fellows, and be in all things obedient, doing 
what exercise was appointed him by the President, or else be finally 
expelled from the College. The first was presently put in execution 
in the Library (Mr. Danforth Jr. being present) before the Scholars. 
He kneeled down and the instrument Goodman Hely attended the 
President's word as to the performance of his part in the work. 
Prayer was had before and after by the President. July i, 1674. 
Sir Thatcher commonplaced, Justification was his head. He had a 
good solid piece : stood above an hour and yet brake off before he 
came to any use. By reason that there was no warning given, none 
(after the undergraduates) were present, save Mr. Dan Gookin, Sr., 
the President and myself. July 3, 1674. N.B. Mr. Gookin, Jr., was 
gone a fishing with his brothers. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 67 

CHRISTMAS DAY IN BOSTON 

Dec. 25, Friday, 1685. Carts come to Town and shops open 
as is usual. Some somehow observe the day ; but are vexed I be- 
heve that the body of the people profane it, and blessed be God no 
authority yet to compell them to keep it. A great snow fell last 
night so this day and night very cold. 

NOTES ON THE WITCHCRAFT TRIALS 

April I ith, 1692. Went to Salem, where, in the Meeting-house, 
the persons accused of Witchcraft were examined ; was a very great 
Assembly ; 'twas awful to see how the afflicted persons were agitated. 
Mr. Noyes pray'd at the beginning, and Mr. Higginson concluded. 
(In the margiii) Vse, Vas, Vae, Witchcraft. 

Augt. 19th, 1692. . . . This day {in t/ic inaj-gin, Doleful Witch- 
craft) George Burrough, John Willard, J no. Procter, Martha Carrier, 
and George Jacobs were executed at Salem, a very great number 
of spectators being present. Mr. Cotton Mather was there, Mr. Sims, 
Hale, Noyes, Chiever &c. All of them said they were innocent. 
Carrier and all. Mr. Mather said they all died by a righteous 
sentence. Mr. Burrough by his speech, prayer, protestation of his 
innocence, did much move unthinking persons, which occasions 
their speaking hardly concerning his being executed. 

Monday, Sept. 19, 1692. About noon, at Salem, Giles Corey 
was press'd to death for standing mute ; much pains were used 
with him two days, one after another, by the Court and Capt. 
Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance ; but all 
in vain. 

Sept. 20. Now I hear from Salem that about 18 years ago, he 
was suspected to have stamped and press'd a man to death, but 
was cleared. 'Twas not remembered till Anne Putnam was told of 
it by Corey's spectre the Sabbath-day night before the execution. 

Sept. 21, 1692. A petition is sent to Town in behalf of Dorcas 
Hoar who now confesses : Accordingly an order is sent to the 



68 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Sheriff to forbear her execution, notwithstanding her being in the 
warrant to die to-morrow. This is the first condemned person who 
has confess'd. 

FAMILY DISCIPLINE 

Nov. 6, 1692. Joseph threw a knop of brass and hit his Sister 
Betty on the forehead so as to make it bleed and swell ; upon 
which, and for his playing at Prayer-time, and eating when Return 
Thanks, I whipped him pretty smartly. When I first went in 
(called by his Grandmother) he sought to shadow and hide him- 
self from me behind the head of the cradle : which gave me the 
sorrowful remembrance of Adam's carriage. 

REFLECTIONS ON SLAVERY 

Fourth-day, June 19, 1700. , . . Having been long and much 
dissatisfied with the trade of fetching Negroes from Guinea ; at 
last I had a strong inclination to write something about it ; but it 
wore off. At last reading Bayne, Ephes. about servants, who men- 
tions Blackamoors ; I began to be uneasy that I had so long 
neglected doing anything. When I was thus thinking, in came 
Bro. Belknap to show me a petition he intended to present to 
Gen' Court for the freeing of a Negro and his wife, who were 
unjustly held in bondage. And there is a motion by a Boston 
Committee to get a law that all importers of Negroes shall pay 
40s per head, to discourage the bringing of them. And Mr. C. 
Mather resolves to publish a sheet to exhort masters to labor their 
conversion. Which makes me hope that I was called of God to 
write this apology for them. Let his blessing accompany the same. 

A COLONIAL WEDDING 

Octobr. 29, 1 71 3. . . . In the Evening Mr. Ebenezer Pemberton 
marries my son Joseph Sewall and Mrs. Elizabeth Walley. Wait 
Winthrop esqr. and Lady, Samuel Porter esqr., Edmund Ouinsey 
esqr., Ephriam Savage esqr. and wife, Madam Usher, Mr. Mice 
and wife, Jer. Dummer esqr.. Cousin Sam. Storke, Cous. Carter, 
and many more present. Sung out of the 1 1 5th Ps. 2^ staves from 



Colonial PERloi) 69 

the nth to the end. W, which I set. Each had a piece of cake 
and sack-posset. Mr. Pemberton craved a blessing and returned 
Thanks at eating the sack-posset. Came away between 9 and 10. 
Daughter Sewall came in the^coach with my wife, who invited her 
to come in and lodge here with her husband ; but she refus'd, and 
said she had promised to go to her Sister Wainwright's and did so. 

A CHIEF JUSTICE IN SEARCH OF A WIFE 

June 9, 1 718. . . . Mrs. D n came in the morning about 

nine o'clock and I took her up into my chamber and discoursed 
thoroughly with her ; She desired me to provide another and better 
nurse, I gave her the two last News Letters — told her I intended 
to visit her at her own house next Lecture Day. She said 'twould 
be talked of. I answered : In such cases, persons must run the 
gauntlet. Gave her Mr. Whiting's Oration for Abijah Walter, who 
brought her on horseback to town. I think little or no notice was 
taken of it. 

7''. 30. Mr. Colman's Lecture : Daughter Sewall acquaints Madam 
Winthrop that if she pleas'd to be within at 3. p.m. I would wait 
on her. She answer'd she would be at home. 

Octob'. 3. Waited on Madam Winthrop again ; 'twas a little 
while before she came in. Her daughter Noyes being there alone 
with me, I said, I hoped my waiting on her mother would not be 
disagreeable to her. She answer'd she should not be against that 
that might be for her comfort. ... By and by in came Mr. Airs, 
Chaplain of the Castle, and hang'd up his hat, which I was a little 
startled at, it seeming as if he was to lodge there. At last Madam 
Winthrop came too. After a considerable time, I went up to her 
and said, if it might not be inconvenient I desired to speak with 
her. She assented, and spake of going into another room ; but 
Mr. Airs and Mrs. Noyes presently rose up, and went out, leaving 
us there alone. Then I usher'd in discourse from the names in the 
Fore-seat ; at last I pray'd that Catharine [Mrs. Winthrop] might 
be the person assign'd for me. She instantly took it up in the way 
of denial, as if she had catch'd at an opportunity to do it, saying 



JO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

she could not do it before she was asked. Said that was her mind 
unless she should change it, which she believed she should not ; 
could not leave her children. I express'd my sorrow that she 
should do it so speedily, pray'd her consideration, and ask'd her 
when I should wait on her again. She setting on time, I mention'd 
that day sennight. Gave her Mr. Willard's Fountain Open'd with 
the little print and verses ; saying, I hop'd if we did well read that 
book, we should meet together hereafter, if we did not now. She 
took the book, and put it in her pocket. Took leave. 

. . . 8^ 12. Mrs. Anne Cotton came to door ('twas before 8.) 
said Madam Winthrop was within, directed me into the little room, 
where she was full of work behind a stand ; Mrs. Cotton came in 
and stood. Madam Winthrop pointed to her to set me a chair. 
Madam Winthrop's countenance was much changed from what 
'twas on Monday, look'd dark and lowering. At last, the work, 
(black stuff or silk) was taken away, I got my chair in place, had 
some converse, but very cold and indifferent to what 'twas before. 
Ask'd her to acquit me of rudeness if I drew off her glove. Enquir- 
ing the reason, I told her 'twas great odds between handling a dead 
goat, and a living lady. Got it off. I told her I had one petition 
to ask of her, that was, that she would take off the negative she laid 
on me the third of October ; She readily answer'd she could not, 
and enlarg'd upon it ; She told me of it so soon as she could ; could 
not leave her house, children, neighbours, business. I told her she 
might do some good to help and support me. Mentioning Mrs. 
Gookin, Nath., the widow Weld was spoken of ; said I had visited 
Mrs. Denison. I told her Yes ! Afterward I said, If after a first 
and second vagary she would accept of me returning, her victorious 
kindness and good will would be very obliging. She thank'd me 
for my book, (Mr. Mayhew's Sermon), but said not a word of the 
letter. When she insisted on the negative, I pray'd there might 
be no more thunder and lightning. I should not sleep all night. 
I gave her Dr. Preston, The Church's Marriage and the Church's 
Carriage, which cost me 6^ at the sale. The door standing open, 
Mr. Airs came in, hung up his hat, and sat down. After awhile, 
Madam Winthrop moving, he went out. Jn° Eyre look'd in, I said 



COLONIAL PERIOD 71 

How do ye, or, your servant Mr. Eyre : but heard no word from 
him. Sarah fill'd a glass of wine, she drank to me, I to her. She 
sent Juno home with me with a good lantern, I gave her 6^. and 
bid her thank her mistress. In some of our discourse, I told her 
I had rather go the Stone-House adjoining to her, than to come 
to her against her mind. Told her the reason why I came every 
other night was lest I should drink too deep draughts of pleasure. 
She had talk'd of Canary, her kisses were to me better than the 
best Canary. Explain'd the expression concerning Columbus. 

8^. 20. . . . Madam Winthrop not being at Lecture, I went 
thither first; found her very serene with her daughter Noyes, Mrs. 
Bering, and the widow Shipreev sitting at a little table, she in her 
arm'd chair. She drank to me, and I to Mrs. Noyes. After awhile 
pray'd the favour to speak with her. She took one of the candles, 
and went into the best room, clos'd the shutters, sat down upon the 
couch. She told me Madam Usher had been there, and said the 
coach must be set on wheels, and not by rusting. She spake some- 
thing of my needing a wig. Ask'd me what her sister said to me. 
I told her. She said, If her sister were for it, she would not hinder 
it. But I told her, she did not say she would be glad to have me 
for her brother. Said, I shall keep you in the cold, and asked her 
if she would be within to morrow night, for we had had but a run- 
ning feat. She said she could not tell whether she should, or no. 
I took leave. As were drinking at the Governour's, he said : In 
England the ladies minded little more than that they might have 
money, and coaches to ride in. I said, And New England brooks 
its name. At which Mr. Dudley smiled. Gov"", said they were not 
quite so bad here. 

Octob''. 24. I went in the Hackney Coach through the Common, 
stop'd at Madam Winthrop's (had told her I would take my depar- 
ture from thence) . Sarah came to the door with Katy in her arms : 
but I did not think to take notice of the child. Call'd her mistress. 
I told her, being encourag'd by David Jeffries' loving eyes, and 
sweet words, I was come to enquire whether she could find in her 
heart to leave that house and neighbourhood, and go and dwell 
with me at the South-end ; I think she said softly, Not yet. I told 



72 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

her it did not lie in my lands to keep a coach. If I should, I should 
be in danger to be brought to keep company with her neighbour 
Brooker, (he was a little before sent to prison for debt). Told her 
I had an antipathy against those who would pretend to give them- 
selves ; but nothing of their estate. I would a proportion of my 
estate with my self. And I supposed she would do so. As to a 
Perriwig, My best and greatest Friend, I could not possibly have 
a greater, began to find me with hair before I was born, and had 
continued to do so ever since ; and I could not find in my heart to 
go to another. She commended the book I gave her, Dr. Preston, 
the Church Marriage ; quoted him saying 'twas inconvenient keep- 
ing out of a fashion commonly used. I said the time and tide did 
circumscribe my visit. She gave me a dram of black-cherry brandy, 
and gave me a lump of the Sugar that was in it. She wish'd me 
a good journey. I pray'd God to keep her, and came away. Had 
a very pleasant journey to Salem. , . . 

Nov, 2. Midweek, went again and found Mrs. Alden there, who 
quickly went out. Gave her about | pound of sugar almonds, cost 
3^ per J[^. Carried them on Monday. She seem'd pleas'd with 
them, ask'd what they cost. Spake of giving her a hundred pounds 
per annum if I died before her. Ask'd her what sum she would 
give me, if she should die first .'' Said I would give her time to 
consider of it. She said she heard as if I had given all to my chil- 
dren by deeds of gift. I told her 'twas a mistake, Point-Judith 
was mine &c. That in England I own'd, my father's desire was 
that it should go to my eldest son ; 'twas 20 J[, per annum ; she 
thought 'twas forty. I think when I seem'd to excuse pressing this, 
she seemed to think 'twas best to speak of it ; a long winter was 
coming on. Gave me a glass or two of Canary. 

Nov"". 4"^. Friday, Went again, about 7. o'clock ; found there 
Mr. John Walley and his wife : sat discoursing pleasantly. I shew'd 
them Isaac Moses's [an Indian] writing. Madam W. serv'd com- 
fits to us. After a-while a table was spread, and supper was set. 
I urg'd Mr. Walley to crave a blessing ; but he put it upon me. 
About 9. they went away. I ask'd Madam what fashioned neck- 
lace I should present her with. She said, None at all. I ask'd her 



COLONIAL PERIOD 73 

Whereabout we left off last time ; mention'd what I had offer'd to 
give her; Ask'd her what she would give me; She said she could 
not change her condition : She had said so from the beginning ; 
could not be so far from her children, the Lecture. Quoted the 
Apostle Paul affirming that a single life was better than a married. 
I answer'd That was for the present distress. Said she had not 
pleasure in things of that nature as formerly : I said, you are the 
fitter to make a wife. If she held in that mind, I must go home 
and bewail my rashness in making more haste than good speed. 
However, considering the supper, I desired her to be within next 
Monday night, if we liv'd so long. Assented. She charg'd me with 
saying, that she must put away Juno, if she came to me : I utterly 
denied it, it never came in my heart ; yet she insisted upon it ; 
saying it came in upon discourse about the Indian woman that 
obtained her freedom this Court. About 10. I said I would not 
disturb the good orders of her house, and came away. She not 
seeming pleas'd with my coming away. Spake to her about David 
Jeffries, had not seen him. 

Monday, Nov'', y^^. My son pray'd in the Old Chamber. Our 
time had been taken up by son and daughter Cooper's Visit ; so 
that I only read the 130^^. and 143. Psalm. Twas on the account 
of my courtship, I went to Mad. Winthrop ; found her rocking her 
little Katy in the cradle. I excus'd my coming so late (near eight). 
She set me an arm'd chair and cushion ; and so the cradle was 
between her arm'd chair and mine. Gave her the remnant of my 
almonds ; She did not eat of them as before ; but laid them away ; 
I said I came to enquire whether she had alter'd her mind since 
Friday, or remained of the same mind still. She said, Thereabouts. 
I told her I loved her, and was so fond as to think that she loved 
me : she said had a great respect for me. I told her, I had made 
her an offer, without asking any advice ; she had so many to advise 
with, that 'twas an hindrance. The fire was come to one short brand 
besides the block, which brand was set up in end ; at last it fell to 
pieces, and no recruit was made : She gave me a glass of wine. 
I think I repeated again that I would go home and bewail my rash- 
ness in making more haste than good speed. I would endeavour 



74 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

to contain myself, and not go on to sollicit her to do that which she 
could not consent to. Took leave of her. As came down the steps 
she bid me have a care. Treated me courteously. Told her she had 
enter'd the 4th year of her widowhood. I had given her the News- 
Letter before : I did not bid her draw off her glove as sometime I 
had done. Her dress was not so clean as sometime it had been. 
Jehovah jireh ! 

Copy of a Letter to Mrs. Mary Gibbs, Widow, at Newtown, 
Jany I2'h, 1 72 1/2. 

Madam : Your removal out of town and the severity of the winter, 
are the reason of my making you this epistolatofy visit. In times 
past (as I remember) you were minded that I should marry you, 
by giving you to your desirable bridegroom. Some sense of this 
intended respect abides with me still ; and puts me upon enquiring 
whether you be willing that I should marry you now, by becoming 
your husband. Aged, feeble and exhausted as I am, your favorable 
answer to this enquiry, in a few lines, the candor of it will much 
oblige Madam your humble serv^ 

S. S. 

Madam Gibbs. 



ROBERT BEVERLY 

[Born in Virginia about 1675; died 1716] 

INHABITANTS OF VIRGINIA 

From the " History and Present State of Virginia," Book IV, 
Part II, Chap. XV 

§65. I can easily imagine with Sir Josiah Child, that this as 
well as all the rest of the plantations, was for the most part at first 
peopled by persons of low circumstances, and by such as were will- 
ing to seek their fortunes in a foreign country. Nor was it hardly 
possible it should be otherwise ; for 'tis not likely that any man 
of a plentiful estate should voluntarily abandon a happy certainty, 
to roam after imaginary advantages, in a new world. Besides which 



COLONIAL PERIOD 75 

uncertainty, he must have proposed to himself to encounter the 
infinite difficulties and dangers that attend a new settlement. These 
discouragements were sufficient to terrify any man that could live 
easy in England, from going to provoke his fortune in a strange 
land. 

§ 66. Those that went over to that country first, were chiefly 
single men, who had not the incumbrance of wives and children 
in England ; and if they had they did not expose them to the 
fatigue and hazard of so long a voyage, until they saw how it 
should fare with themselves. From hence it came to pass, that 
when they were settled there in a comfortable way of subsisting 
a family, they grew sensible of the misfortune of wanting wives, 
and such as had left wives in England sent for them ; but the single 
men were put to their shifts. They excepted against the Indian 
women, on account of their being pagans, as well as their com- 
plexions, and for fear they should conspire with those of their own 
nation, to destroy their husbands. Under this difficulty they had 
no hopes, but that the plenty in which they lived, might invite 
modest women, of small fortunes, to go over thither from England. 
However, they would not receive any, but such as could carry suf- 
ficient certificate of their modesty and good behavior. Those, if 
they were but moderately qualified in other respects, might depend 
upon marrying very well in those days, without any fortune. Nay, 
the first planters were so far from expecting money with a woman, 
that 'twas a common thing for them to buy a deserving wife that 
carried good testimonials of her character, at the price of lOO 
pounds, and make themselves believe they had a bargain. 

^Oy. But this way of peopling the colony was only at first; 
for after the advantages of the climate, and the fruitfulness of the 
soil were well known, and all the dangers incident to infant settle- 
ment were over, people of better condition retired thither with 
their families, either to increase the estates they had before, or 
else to avoid being persecuted for their principles of religion, or 
government. 

Thus in the time of the Rebellion in England, several good 
cavalier families went thither with their effects to escape the tyr- 
anny of the Usurper, or acknowledgement of his title, and so 



y6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

again, upon the Restoration, many people of the opposite party 
took refuge there, to shelter themselves from the king's resent- 
ment. But Virginia had not many of these last, because that 
country was famous for holding out the longest for the royal family, 
of any of the English dominions ; for which reason, the Round- 
heads went for the most part to New- England, as did most of 
those, that in the reign of King Charles II. were molested on ac- 
count of their religion, though some of these fell likewise to the 
share of Virginia. As for malefactors condemned to transporta- 
tion, tho' the greedy planter will always buy them, yet it is to be 
feared they will be very injurious to the country, which has already 
suffered many murthers and robberies, the effects of that new law 
of England. 

PASTIMES IN VIRGINIA 
From Book IV, Part II 

For their recreation, the plantations, orchards, and gardens con- 
stantly afford them fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods 
and fields, they have an unknown variety of vegetables, and other 
rarities of nature to discover and observe. They have hunting, 
fishing, and fowling, with which they entertain themselves an hun- 
dred ways. Here is the most good-nature and hospitality practised 
in the world, both toward friends and strangers ; but the worst of 
it is, this generosity is attended now and then with a little too 
much intemperance. The neighborhood is at much the same dis- 
tance as in the country in England ; but with this advantage, that 
all the better sort of people have been abroad, and seen the world, 
by which means they are free from that stiffness and formality, 
which discover more civility than kindness. And besides, the 
goodness of the roads and the fairness of the weather bring people 
oftener together. 

The Indians, as I have already observed, had in their hunting 
a way of concealing themselves, and coming up to the deer, under 
the blind of a stalking-head, in imitation of which many people 
have taught their horses to stalk it, that is, to walk gently by the 
huntsman's side, to cover him from the sight of the deer. Others 



COLONIAL PERIOD -jj 

cut down trees for the deer to browse upon, and lie in wait behind 
them. Others again set stakes at a certain distance within their 
fences, where the deer had been used to leap over into a field of 
peas, which they love extremely ; these stakes they so place, as to 
run into the body of the deer, when he pitches, by which means 
they impale him. 

They hunt their hares (which are very numerous) a-foot, with 
mongrels or swift dogs, which either catch them quickly, or force 
them to a hole in a hollow tree, whither all their hares generally 
tend, when they are closely pursued. As soon as they are thus 
holed, and have crawled up into the body of a tree, the business 
is to kindle a fire and smother them with smoke till they let go 
their hold and fall to the bottom stifled ; from whence they take 
them. If they have a mind to spare their lives, upon turning them 
loose they will be as fit as ever to hunt at another time : for the 
mischief done them by the smoke immediately wears off again. 

They have another sort of hunting, which is very diverting, and 
that they call vermin-hunting ; it is performed a-foot, with small 
dogs in the night, by the light of the moon or stars. Thus in 
summer time they find abundance of raccoons, opossums, and foxes 
in the corn-fields, and about their plantations ; but at other times 
they must go into the woods for them. The method is to go out 
with three or four dogs, and, as soon as they come to the place, 
they bid the dogs seek out, and all the company follow immedi- 
ately. Wherever a dog barks, you may depend upon finding the 
game ; and this alarm draws both men and dogs that way. If this 
sport be in the woods, the game by that time you come near it is 
perhaps mounted to the top of an high tree, and then they detach 
a nimble fellow up after it, who must have a scuffle with the beast, 
before he can throw it down to the dogs ; and then the sport 
increases, to see the vermin encounter those little curs. . . . 

For wolves they make traps, and set guns baited in the woods, 
so that, when he offers to seize the bait, he pulls the trigger, and 
the gun discharges upon him. What Elian and Pliny write of the 
horses being benumbed in their legs, if they tread in the track of 
a wolf, does not hold good here ; for I myself, and many others, 
have rid full speed after wolves in the woods, and have seen live 



78 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ones taken out of a trap, and dragged at a horse's tail ; and yet 
those that followed on horse-back have not perceived any of their 
horses to falter in their pace. . . . 

The inhabitants are very courteous to travellers, who need no 
other recommendation, but the being human creatures. A stranger 
has no more to do, but to inquire upon the road where any gentle- 
man or good housekeeper lives, and there he may depend upon 
being received with hospitality. This good nature is so general 
among their people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order 
their principal servant to entertain all visitors with everything the 
plantation affords. And the poor planters, who have but one bed, 
will very often sit up, or lie upon a form or couch all night, to 
make room for a weary traveller to repose himself after his journey. 

If there happen to be a churl, that either out of covetousness, 
or ill-nature, would not comply with this generous custom, he has 
a mark of infamy set upon him, and is abhorred by all. 

SERVANTS AND SLAVES IN VIRGINIA 
From Book IV, Part I 

§ 50. Their servants they distinguish by the names of slaves 
for life, and servants for a time. 

Slaves are the negroes, and their posterity, following the con- 
dition of the mother, according to the maxim, partus sequitur 
ventrem. They are called slaves in respect to the time of their servi- 
tude, because it is for life. 

Servants are those which serve only for a few years, according 
to the time of indenture, or the custom of the country. The cus- 
tom of the country takes place upon such as have no indentures. 
The law in this case is, that if such servants be under nineteen 
years of age, they must be brought into court, to have their age 
adjudged ; and from the age they are judged to be of, they must 
serve until they reach four and twenty. But if they be adjudged 
upwards of nineteen they are then only to be servants for the term 
of five years. 

§51. The male-servants, and slaves of both sexes, are employed 
together in tilling and manuring the ground, in sowing and planting 



COLONIAL PERIOD 79 

tobacco, corn, etc. Some distinction, indeed, is made between them 
in their clothes, and food ; but the work of both is no other than 
what the overseers, the freemen, and the planters themselves do. 

Sufificient distinction is also made between the female-servants, 
and slaves ; for a white woman is rarely or never put to work in 
the ground, if she be good for anything else : and to discourage 
all planters from using any women so, their law makes female- 
servants working in the ground tithable, while it suffers all other 
white women to be absolutely exempted : Whereas on the other 
hand, it is a common thing to work a woman slave out of doors ; 
nor does the law make any distinction in her taxes, whether her 
work be abroad, or at home. 

§ 52. Because I have heard how strangely cruel, and severe, 
the service of this country is represented in some parts of Eng- 
land ; I can't forbear affirming, that the work of their servants 
and slaves is no other than what every common freeman does. 
Neither is any servant required to do more in a day, than his over- 
seer. And I can assure you with great truth, that generally their 
slaves are not worked near so hard, nor so many hours in a day, 
as the husbandmen, and day-laborers in England. An overseer is 
a man, that having served his time, has acquired the skill and 
character of an experienced planter, and is therefore intrusted with 
the direction of the servants and slaves. 



WILLIAM BYRD 

[Born at Westover, Virginia, March 28(?) 1674; died at Westover, 
August 26, 1744] 

NORTH CAROLINA FARMING 
From " The History of the Dividing Line " 

March loth 1728. The Sabbath happened very opportunely to 
give some ease to our jaded people, who rested religiously from 
every work, but that of cooking the kettle. We observed very few 
cornfields in our walks, and those very small, which seemed the 
stranger to us, because we could see no other token of husbandry 



8o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

or improvement. But, upon further inquiry, we were given to 
understand people only made corn for themselves and not for 
their stocks, which know very well how to get their own living. 
Both cattle and hogs ramble into the neighboring marshes and 
swamps, where they maintain themselves the whole winter long, and 
are not fetched home till the spring. Thus these indolent wretches, 
during one half of the year, lose the advantage of the milk of their 
cattle as well as their dung, and many of the poor creatures perish 
in the mire, into the bargain, by this ill-management. Some who 
pique themselves more upon industry than their neighbors, will, 
now and then, in compliment to their cattle, cut down a tree whose 
limbs are loaded with the moss afore-mentioned. The trouble would 
be too great to climb the tree in order to gather this provender, but 
the shortest way (which in this country is always counted the best) 
is to fell it, just like the lazy Indians, who do the same by such 
trees as bear fruit, and so make one harvest for all. 

RUNAWAY SLAVES IN HIDING 
From the Same 

March nth 1728. , . . We had encamped so early, that we 
found time in the evening to walk near half a mile into the woods. 
There we came upon a family of mulattoes that called themselves 
free, though by the shyness of the master of the house, who took 
care to keep least in sight, their freedom seemed a little doubtful. 
It is certain many slaves shelter themselves in this obscure part of 
the world, nor will any of their righteous neighbors discover them. 
On the contrary, they find their account in settling such fugitives 
on some out-of-the-way corner of their land, to raise stocks for a 
mean and inconsiderable share, well-knowing their condition makes 
it necessary for them to submit to any terms. Nor were these 
worthy borderers content to shelter runaway slaves, but debtors 
and criminals have often met with the like indulgence. But if the 
government of North Carolina has encouraged this unneighborly 
policy in order to increase their people, it is no more than what 
ancient Rome did before them, which was made a city of refuge 
for all debtors and fugitives, and from that wretched beginning 



COLONIAL PERIOD 8i 

grew up in time to be mistress of a great part of the world. And, 
considering how fortune delights in bringing great things out of 
small, who knows but Carolina may, one time or other, come to be 
the seat of some other great empire ? 

CONVIVIALITY IN THE COLONIES 
From the Same 

March 26th 1728. Since we were like to be confined to this 
place till the people returned out of the Dismal, it was agreed that 
our chaplain might safely take a turn to Edenton, to preach the 
Gospel to the infidels there, and christen their children. He was 
accompanied thither by Mr. Little, one of the Carolina Commis- 
sioners, who, to show his regard for the Church, offered to treat 
him on the road with a fricassee of rum. They fried half a dozen 
rashers of very fat bacon in a pint of rum, both which being dished 
up together, served the company at once both for meat and drink. 
Most of the rum they get in this country comes from New Eng- 
land, and is so bad and unwholesome, that it is not improperly 
called '" kill-devil." It is distilled there from foreign molasses, 
which, if skilfully managed, yields near gallon for gallon. Their 
molasses comes from the same country, and has the name of " long 
sugar " in Carolina, I suppose from the ropiness of it, and serves 
all the purposes of sugar, both in their eating and drinking. When 
they entertain their friends bountifully, they fail not to set before 
them a capacious bowl of Bombo, so called from the Admiral of that 
name. This is a compound of rum and water in equal parts, made 
palatable with the said " long sugar." As good humor begins to 
flow, and the bowl to ebb, they take care to replenish it with sheer 
rum, of which there is always a reserve under the table. But such 
generous doings happen only when that balsam of life is plenty. . . . 

DENTISTRY IN PRIMITIVE DAYS 
From '' A Journey to the Land of Eden " 

Oct. 9th 1733. Major Mayo's survey being no more than half 
done, we were obliged to amuse ourselves another day in this place. 
And that the time might not be quite lost, we put our garments 



82 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

and baggage into good repair. I for my part never spent a day so 
well during the whole voyage. I had an impertinent tooth in my 
upper jaw, that had been loose for some time, and made me chew 
with great caution. Particularly I could not grind a biscuit but 
with much deliberation and presence of mind. Tooth-drawers we 
had none amongst us, nor any of the instruments they make use 
of. However, invention supplied this want very happily, and I con- 
trived to get rid of this troublesome companion by cutting a caper. 
I caused a twine to be fastened round the root of my tooth, about 
a fathom in length, and then tied the other end to the snag of a 
log that lay upon the ground, in such a manner that I could just 
stand upright. Having adjusted my string in this manner, I bent 
my knees enough to enable me to spring vigorously off the ground, 
as perpendicularly as I could. The force of the leap drew out the 
tooth with so much ease that I felt nothing of it, nor should have 
believed it was come away, unless I had seen it dangling at the 
end of the string. An under tooth may be fetched out by standing 
off the ground and fastening your string at due distance above you. 
And having so fixed your gear, jump off your standing, and the 
weight of your body, added to the force of the spring, will prize 
out your tooth with less pain than any operator upon earth could 
draw it. 

This new way of tooth-drawing, being so silently and deliberately 
performed, both surprised and delighted all that were present, who 
could not guess what I was going about. I immediately found the 
benefit of getting rid of this troublesome companion, by eating 
my supper with more comfort than I had done during the whole 
expedition. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 83 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 

[Born at East Windsor, Connecticut, October 5, 1703 ; died at Princeton, 
New Jersey, March 22, 1758] 

RESOLUTIONS FORMED IN EARLY LIFE (EXTRACTS) 

4, Resolved never to Do, Be or Suffer, anything in soul or 
body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, 

34. Resolved, never to speak in narrations anything but the 
pure and simple verity. 

41. Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, 
month, and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have 
done better. 

43. Resolved, never to act as if I were anyway my own, but 
entirely and altogether God's. 

47. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not 
most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, 
quiet, peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, 
meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, chari- 
table, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, serene temper ; and to do 
at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly 
every week, whether I have done so. 

52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would 
live, if they were to live their lives over again : Resolved, that I 
will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing 
I live to old age. 

EXTRACTS FROM EDWARDS'S DIARY 

Saturday, March 2 (1723) O, how much pleasanter is humility 
than pride ! O, that God would fill me with exceeding great 
humility, and that he would evermore keep me from all pride ! 
The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and 
exquisite delights in the world. How hateful is a proud man ! 
How hateful is a worm that lifts up itself with pride ! What a 
foolish, silly, miserable, blind, deceived, poor worm am I, when 
pride works ! 



84 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Wednesday, March 6, near sunset. Felt the doctrines of elec- 
tion, free grace, and of one not being able to do anything without 
the grace of God, and that holiness is entirely, throughout, the 
work of God's spirit, with more pleasure than before. 

********** 

Saturday night, April 13. I could pray more heartily this night, 
for the forgiveness of my enemies, than ever before. 

********** 

Thursday, May 2. I think it a very good way to examine dreams 
every morning when I awake ; what are the nature, circumstances, 
principles, and ends of my imaginary actions and passions in them, 
to discern what are my chief inclinations, etc. 



SARAH PIERREPONT, AFTERWARD HIS WIFE 
Written on a Blank Leaf, in 1723 

They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved 
of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there 
are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other 
invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet 
delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate 
on him — that she expects after a while to be received up where 
he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven ; 
being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a dis- 
tance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be 
ravished with his love and delight forever. Therefore, if you pre- 
sent all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she 
disregards and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or 
affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind and singular 
purity in her affections ; is most just and conscientious in all her 
conduct ; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong 
or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend 
this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and 
universal benevolence of mind ; especially after this great God has 
manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from 
place to place, singing sweetly ; and seems to be always full of joy 



COLONIAL PERIOD 85 

and pleasure ; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, 
walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one 
invisible always conversing with her. 

A FAREWELL SERMON (EXTRACTS) 
Preached at Northamptox, June 22, 1750 

My parting with you is in some respects in a peculiar manner a 
melancholy parting ; inasmuch as I leave you in most melancholy 
circumstances ; because I leave you in the gall of bitterness, and 
bond of iniquity, having the wrath of God abiding on you, and 
remaining under condemnation to everlasting misery and destruc- 
tion. Seeing I must leave you, it would have been a comfortable 
and happy circumstance of our parting, if I had left you in Christ, 
safe and blessed in that sure refuge and glorious rest of the saints. 
But it is otherwise. I leave you far off, aliens and strangers, 
wretched subjects and captives of sin and Satan, and prisoners of 
vindictive justice ; without Christ, and without God in the world. 

Your consciences bear me witness, that while I had opportunity, 
I have not ceased to warn you, and set before you your danger. I 
have studied to represent the misery and necessity of your circum- 
stances in the clearest manner possible. I have tried all ways that 
I could think of tending to awaken your consciences, and make 
you sensible of the necessity of your improving your time, and 
being speedy in flying from the wrath to come, and thorough in 
the use of means for your escape and safety. I have diligently 
endeavored to find out and use the most powerful motives to per- 
suade you to take care for your own welfare and salvation. I have 
not only endeavored to awaken you, that you might be moved with 
fear, but I have used my utmost endeavors to win you : I have 
sought out acceptable words, that if possible I might prevail upon 
you to forsake sin, and turn to God, and accept of Christ as 
your Saviour and Lord. I have spent my strength very much in 
these things. But yet, with regard to you whom I am now speak- 
ing to, I have not been successful ; but have this day reason to 
complain in those words, Jer. 6 : 29 : " The bellows are burnt, the 
lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melteth in vain, for the 



86 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

wicked are not plucked away." It is to be feared that all my 
labors, as to many of you, have served no other purpose but to 
harden you ; and that the word which I have preached, instead of 
being a savor of life unto life, has been a savor of death unto 
death. Though I shall not have any account to give for the future 
of such as have openly and resolutely renounced my ministry, as 
of a betrustment committed to me : yet remember you must give 
account for yourselves, of your care of your own souls, and your 
improvement of all means past and future, through your whole 
lives. God only knows what will become of your poor perishing 
souls, what means you may hereafter enjoy, or what disadvantages 
and temptations you may be under. May God in his mercy grant, 
that however all past means have been unsuccessful, you may have 
future means which may have a new effect ; and that the word of 
God, as it shall be hereafter dispensed to you, may prove as the 
fire and the hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. However, 
let me now at parting exhort and beseech you not wholly to forget 
the warnings you have had while under my ministry. When you 
and I shall meet at the day of judgment, then you will remember 
them : the sight of me, your former minister, on that occasion, 
will soon revive them to your memory : and that in a very affect- 
ing manner. O do not let that be the first time that they are 
so revived. 

You and I are now parting one from another as to this world ; 
let us labor that we may not be parted after our meeting at the 
last day. If I have been your faithful pastor (which will that day 
appear whether I have or no) then I shall be acquitted, and shall 
ascend with Christ. O do your part that in such a case, it may 
not be so, that you should be forced eternally to part from me, 
and all that have been faithful in Christ Jesus. This is a sorrowful 
parting that now is between you and me, but that would be a more 
sorrowful parting to you than this. This you may perhaps bear 
without being much affected with it, if you are not glad of it ; but 
such a parting in that day will most deeply, sensibly, and dreadfully 
affect you. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 87 

Having briefly mentioned these important articles of advice, 
nothing remains, but that I now take my leave of you, and bid 
you all farewell; wishing and praying for your best prosperity. I 
would now commend your immortal souls to Him, who formerly 
committed them to me, expecting the day, when I must meet you 
before Him, who is the Judge of quick and dead. I desire that I 
may never forget this people, who have been so long my special 
charge, and that I may never cease fervently to pray for your 
prosperity. May God bless you with a faithful pastor, one that is 
well acquainted with his mind and will, thoroughly warning sinners, 
wisely and skillfully searching professors, and conducting you in 
the way to eternal blessedness. May you have truly a burning and 
shining light set up in this candlestick ; and may you, not only 
for a season, but during his whole life, and that a long life, be 
willing to rejoice in his light. 

And let me be remembered in the prayers of all God's people 
that are of a calm spirit, and are peaceable and faithful in Israel, 
of whatever opinion they may be with respect to terms of church 
communion. 

And let us all remember, and never forget our future solemn meet- 
ing on that great day of the Lord ; the day of infallible decision, and 
of the everlasting and unalterable sentence. Amen. 



88 



READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER 

ENLARGED 

FOR THE MORE EASY ATTAINING THE TRUE READING OF 
ENGLISH TO WHICH IS ADDED THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES 

CATECHISM 

[The New England Primer, first printed between 1687 and 1690. To it was 
added John Cotton's Shorter Catechism, " The Milk for Babes "] 



SELECTIONS 



1727 

In Adam's Fall 
We sinned all. 

Thy Life to mend 
This Book attend. 

The Cat doth play, 
And after slay. 

A Dog will bite, 
The Thief at Night. 

An Eagle's flight, 
Is out of sight. 

The idle Fool, 

Is whipt at School. 

As runs the Glass 
Man's Life doth pass. 

My Book and Heart 
Shall never part. 

Job feels the rod 
Yet blesses God. 



1762 

In Adam's Fall 
We sinned all. 

Heaven to find, 
The Bible mind. 

Christ crucy'd 
For sinners dy'd. 

The Deluged drown'd 
The Earth around. 

Elijah hid 
By ravens fed. 

The judgement made 
Felix afraid. 

As runs the Glass, 
Our Life doth pass. 

My Book and Heart 
Must never part. 

Job feels the Rod 
Yet blesses God. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 



89 



Our King the good 
No man of blood. 

The Lion bold, 

The Lamb doth hold. 



The Moon gives Light 
In time of night. 



Nightingales sing, 
In time of Spring. 



Proud Korah's troop 
Was swallowed up. 

Lot fled to Zoar. 
Saw fiery shower, 
On Sodom pour. 

Moses was he 
Who Israel's Host 
Led thro' the Sea. 

Noah did view 

The old world & new. 



The Royal Oak it was the Tree, Young Obadius, 
That sav'd his Royal Majesty. David, Josias, 

All were Pious. 



Peter denies 

His Lord and cries. 

Queen Esther comes 
In Royal state 
To save the Jews 
From dismal fate. 

Rachel doth mourn 
For her first born. 

Samuel anoints 
Whom God appoints. 

Time cuts down all, 
Both great and small, 

Uriah's beauteous Wife, 
Made David seek his life. 

Whales in the Sea 
God's Voice obey. 



Peter deny'd 

His Lord and cry'd. 

Queen Esther sues. 
And saves the Jews. 



Young pious Ruth 
Left all for Truth. 

Young Sam'l dear 
The Lord did fear. 

Young Timothy 
Learnt Sin to fly. 

Vashti for Pride, 
Was set aside. 

Whales in the Sea, 
God's Voice obey. 



90 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Xerxes the great did die Xerxes did die, 

And so must you & I. And so must I. 

Youth forward shps While Youth do chear 

Death soonest nips. Death may be near. 

Zacheus he Zaccheus he 

Did cHmb the Tree Did chmb the Tree, 

His Lord to see. Our Lord to see. 

Now the Child being entred in his Letters and Spelling, let 
him learn these and such like Sentences by Heart, whereby he will 
be both instructed in his Duty, and encouraged in his Learning. 

THE DUTIFUL CHILD'S PROMISES 

I will fear GOD, and honour the KING. 

I will honour my Father & Mother. 

I will obey my Superiours. 

I will submit to my Elders. 

I will Love my Friends, 

I will hate no Man. 

I will forgive my Enemies, and pray to God for them. 

I will as much as in me lies keep all God's Holy Commandments. 

I will learn my Catechism. 

I will keep the Lord's Day Holy. 

I will reverence God's sanctuary. 

For our GOD is a consuming Fire. 

VERSES 

I in the Burying Place may see 

Graves Shorter there than I ; 
From Death's Arrest no Age is free, 

Young Children too may die ; 
My God, may such an awful Sight, 

Awakening be to me ! 
Oh ! that by early Grace I might 
For Death prepared be. 



COLONIAL PERIOD 91 

GOOD CHILDREN MUST 

Fear God all Day Love Christ alway 

Parents obey In Secret Pray 

No False thing Say Mind little Play 

By no Sin Stray Make no delay 

In doing Good 

LEARN THESE FOUR LINES BY HEART 

Have communion with few. 
Be intimate with ONE. 
Deal justly with all. 
Speak Evil of none. 



THE INFANT'S GRACE BEFORE AND AFTER MEAT 

Bless me, O Lord, and let my food strengthen me to serve 
Thee, for Jesus Christ's sake. Ajhoi. 

I desire to thank God who gives me food to eat every day of 
my life. Amen. 



ALPHABET VERSES 
(1791) (1797) 

Kings should be good The British King 

Not men of Blood. Lost States Thirteen. 

(1825) 

Queens and Kings 'Tis Youth's Delight 

Are gaudy things. To fly their Kite. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

[Born at Boston, Massachusetts, January 17, 1706; died at Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, April 1 7, 1 790] 

THE ALMANACS 

In 1732 I first published my Almanac, under the name of 
" Richard Saunders ; " it was continued by me about twenty-five 
years, and commonly called " Poor Richard's Almanac." I en- 
deavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accord- 
ingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit 
from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that 
it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province 
being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying 
instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any 
other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred 
between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sen- 
tences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the 
means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue ; it being 
more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as (to 
use here one of those proverbs), "it is hard for an empty sack to 
stand upright." 

These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and 
nations, I assembled and formed into a connected discourse, pre- 
fixed to the Almanac of 1757 as the harangue of a wise old man 
to the people attending an auction. The bringing all these scat- 
tered counsels thus into a focus enabled them to make greater im- 
pression. The piece, being universally approved, was copied in all 
the newspapers of the Continent, reprinted in Britain on a broad- 
side, to be stuck up in houses, two translations were made of it in 

92 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 93 

French, and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry to 
distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants. In 
Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign super- 
fluities, some thought it had its share of influence in producing 
that growing plenty of money which was observable for several 
years after its publication. 



THE WAY TO WEALTH 

As CLEARLY SHOWN IN THE PREFACE OF AN OlD PENNSYLVANIA AlMANAC 
ENTITLED " PoOR RiCHARD IMPROVED " 

Courteous Reader : I have heard that nothing gives an author 
so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by other 
learned authors. This pleasure I have seldom enjoyed ; for, though 
I have been, if I may say it without vanity, an eminent author (of 
almanacs) annually, now a full quarter of a century, my brother 
authors in the same way, for what reason I know not, have ever 
been very sparing in their applauses and no other author has taken 
the least notice of me ; so that, did not my writings produce me 
some solid pudding, the great deficiency of praise would have 
quite discouraged me. 

I concluded at length that the people were the best judges of 
my merit, for they buy my works ; and, besides, in my rambles 
where I am not personally known, I have frequently heard one or 
other of my adages repeated with " As Poor Richard says " at the 
end of it. This gave me some satisfaction, as it showed not only 
that my instructions were regarded, but discovered likewise some 
respect for my authority ; and I own that, to encourage the practice 
of remembering and reading those wise sentences, I have sometimes 
quoted myself with great gravity. 

Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an inci- 
dent I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where 
a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants' 
goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing 
on the badness of the times ; and one of the company called to a 
plain, clean old man with \^hite locks, '" Pray, Father Abraham, 



94 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

what think you of the times ? Will not these heavy taxes quite 
ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What 
would you advise us to do ? " Father Abraham stood up and replied, 
" If you would have my advice, I will give it to you in short ; for 
A word to the wise is enough, as Poor Richard says," They joined 
in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering around him, he 
proceeded as follows : 

" Friends," said he, " the taxes are indeed very heavy, and if 
those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, 
we might more easily discharge them ; but we have many others, 
and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as 
much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four 
times as much by our folly ; and from these taxes the commission- 
ers cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. However, 
let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us ; 
God helps them that helps themselves, as Poor Richard says. 

I. "It would be thought a hard government that should tax its 
people one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service ; 
but idleness taxes many of us much more ; sloth, by bringing on 
diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster 
than labor wears, while The used key is always bright, as Poor 
Richard says. But dost thou love life ? Then do not squander 
time, for that is the stuff life is made of, as Poor Richard says. 
How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forget- 
ting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be 
sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says. If time be of 
all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor Richard 
says, the greatest prodigality ; since, as he elsewhere tells us. Lost 
time is never found again, and what we call time enough always 
proves little enough. Let us, then, be up and be doing, and doing to 
the purpose ; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. 
Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all easy ; and, He 
that riseth late must trot all day and shall scarce overtake his 
business at night ; while Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty 
soon overtakes him. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee ; 
and. Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, 
and wise, as Poor Richard says. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 95 

" So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times ? We 
make these times better if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not 
wish, and he that hves upon hopes will die fasting. There are no 
gains without pains ; then help, hands, for I have no lands ; or, 
if I have, they are smartly taxed. He that hath a trade hath an 
estate ; and he that hath a calling, hath an office of profit and 
honor, as Poor Richard says ; but then the trade must be worked 
at and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor the office will 
enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never 
starve ; for, At the workingman's house hunger looks in, but dares 
not enter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter ; for Industry 
pays debts, while Despair increaseth them. What though you have 
found no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy ; 
Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to 
Industry. Then plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall 
have corn to sell and to keep. Work while it is called to-day, for 
you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One 
to-day is worth two to-morrows, as Poor Richard says ; and, further. 
Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day. If you 
were a good servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master 
should catch you idle ? Are you, then, your own master ? Be 
ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is so much to be done 
for yourself, your family, your country, your kin. Handle your 
tools without mittens ; remember that The cat in gloves catches 
no mice, as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be 
done, and perhaps you are weak-handed ; but stick to it steadily, 
and you will see great effects ; for, Constant dropping wears away 
stones ; and, By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the 
cable ; and, Little strokes fell great oaks. 

" Methinks I hear some of you say. Must a man afford himself 
no leisure ? I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says : 
Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure ; and since 
thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is 
time for doing something useful ; this leisure the diligent man will 
obtain, but the lazy man never ; for, A life of leisure and a life of 
laziness are two things. Many, without labor, would live by their 
wits only, but they break for want of stock ; whereas industry gives 



96 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

comfort and plenty and respect. Fly pleasures and they will follow 
you. The diligent spinner has a large shift ; and now I have a 
sheep and a cow, every one bids me good morrow. 

II. " But with our industry we must likewise be steady and care- 
ful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust 
too much to others ; for, as Poor Richard says : 

I never saw an oft-removed tree, 

Nor yet an oft-removed family, 

That throve so well as those that settled be. 

And again. Three removes are as bad as a fire ; and again. Keep 
thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee ; and again. If you would 
have your business done, go ; if not, send ; and again : 

He that by the plow would thrive, 
Himself must either hold or drive. 

And again, The eye of the master will do more work than both 
his hands ; and again. Want of care does us more damage than 
want of knowledge ; and again. Not to oversee workmen is to leave 
them your purse open. Trusting too much to others' care is the 
ruin of many ; for, In the affairs of this world men are saved, not 
by faith, but by the want of it. But a man's own care is profitable ; 
for, If you would have a faithful servant and one that you like, serve 
yourself. A little neglect may breed great mischief ; for want of 
a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and 
for want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain 
by the enemy ; all for want of a little care about a horseshoe nail. 

III. "So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's 
own business ; but to these we must add frugality, if we would 
make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he 
knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the 
grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes 
a lean will ; and 

Many estates are spent in the getting, 
Since women forsook spinning and knitting, 
And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting. 

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. The 
Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater 
than her incomes. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 97 

" Away, then, with your expensive foUies, and you will not then 
have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and 
chargeable families ; for 

Pleasure and wine, game and deceit, 
Make the wealth small, and the want great. 

And further, What maintains one vice would bring up two children. 
You may think, perhaps, that a little tea or a little punch now and 
then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little 
entertainment now and then, can be no great matter ; but remember. 
Many a little makes a mickle. Beware of little expenses ; A small 
leak will sink a great ship, as Poor Richard says ; and again. Who 
dainties love shall beggars prove ; and moreover, Fools make feasts 
and wise men eat them. 

" Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knick- 
knacks. You call them goods ; but, if you do not take care, they 
will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, 
and perhaps they may for less than they cost ; but, if you have no 
occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what 
Poor Richard says : Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long 
thou shalt sell thy necessaries. And again. At a great pennyworth 
pause awhile. He means that perhaps the cheapness is apparent 
only, and not real ; or, the bargain, by straitening thee in thy busi- 
ness, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he 
says. Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths. Again, 
It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance ; and 
yet this folly is practiced every day at auctions for want of minding 
the Almanac. Many for the sake of finery on the back have gone 
hungry and half-starved their families. Silks and satins, scarlet 
and velvets, put out the kitchen fire, as Poor Richard says. 

" These are not the necessaries of life ; they can scarcely be 
called the conveniences ; and yet, only because they look pretty, 
how many want to have them. By these and other extravagances 
the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those 
whom they formerly despised, but who, through industry and frugal- 
ity, have maintained their standing ; in which case it appears plainly 
that, A plowman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his 
knees, as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have a small estate left 



98 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

them which they knew not the getting of ; they think, It is day 
and it never will be night ; that a little to be spent out of so much 
is not worth minding ; but, Always taking out of the meal tub and 
never putting in, soon comes to the bottom, as Poor Richard says ; 
and then. When the well is dry, they know the worth of water. 
But this they might have known before, if they had taken his ad- 
vice. If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow 
some ; for, He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing, as Poor 
Richard says ; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, 
when he goes to get it again. Poor Dick further advises and says : 

Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse ; 
Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse. 

And again, Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal 
more saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy 
ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece ; but Poor 
Dick says. It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy 
all that follow it. And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the 
rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox. 

Vessels large may venture more, 

But little boats should keep near shore. 

It is, however, a folly soon punished ; for, as Poor Richard says, 
Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted 
with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy. And, 
after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much 
is risked, so much is suffered ? It cannot promote health nor ease 
pain ; it makes no increase of merit in the person ; it creates envy ; 
it hastens misfortune. 

" But what madness must it be to run in debt for these super- 
fluities ? We are offered by the terms of this sale six months' credit ; 
and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we 
cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. 
But ah ! think what you do when you run in debt ; you give to 
another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you 
will be ashamed to see your creditor ; you will be in fear when 
you speak to him ; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, 
and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 99 

downright lying ; for, The second vice is lying, the first is running 
in debt, as Poor Richard says ; and again to the same purpose, 
Lying rides upon debt's back ; whereas a freeborn Englishman 
ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any riian 
living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. 
It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. 

" What would you think of that prince, or of that government, 
who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman 
or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude ? Would 
you not say that you are free, have a right to dress as you please, 
and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges and 
such a government tyrannical ? And yet you are about to put your- 
self under such tyranny, when you run in debt for such dress. 
Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your 
liberty by confining you in jail till you shall be able to pay him. 
When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of 
payment ; but, as Poor Richard says. Creditors have better memo- 
ries than debtors ; creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers 
of set days and times. The day comes round before you are aware, 
and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it ; or, 
if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so 
long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem 
to have added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. Those 
have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter. At present, 
perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and 
that you can bear a little extravagance without injury ; but 

For age and want save while you may ; 
No morning sun lasts a whole day. 

Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, 
expense is constant and certain ; and. It is easier to build two 
chimneys than to keep one in fuel, as Poor Richard says ; so, 
Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt. 

Get what you can, and what you get, hold, 

'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold. 

And when you have got the philosopher's stone, be sure you will 
no longer complain of bad times or the difficulty of paying taxes. 



lOO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

IV. " This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom ; but, 
after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry and 
frugality and prudence, though excellent things ; for they may all 
be blasted, without the blessing of Heaven ; and, therefore, ask 
that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at 
present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember 
Job suffered, and was afterward prosperous. 

"And now, to conclude. Experience keeps a dear school, but 
fools will learn in no other, as Poor Richard says, and scarce in 
that ; for, it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give con- 
duct. However, remember this : They that will not be counseled 
cannot be helped ; and further that. If you will not hear Reason, 
she will surely rap your knuckles, as Poor Richard says." 

Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard 
it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the con- 
trary, just as if it had been a common sermon ; for the auction 
opened and they began to buy extravagantly. I found the good 
man had thoroughly studied my almanacs, and digested all I had 
dropped on these topics during the course of twenty-five years. The 
frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else ; 
but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was 
conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own which 
he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the 
sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better 
for the echo of it ; and, though I had at first determined to buy 
stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a 
little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be 
as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee, 

Richard Saunders 

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (EXTRACTS) 

Part I, Chap. I 

FRANKLIN'S EARLY INTEREST IN BOOKS 

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money 
that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with 
the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD lOi 

works in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable 
me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections ; they were small 
chapmen's books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. My father's little 
library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which 
I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had 
such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in 
my way, since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. 
Plutarch's Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still 
think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of 
De Foe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather's, 
called Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of think- 
ing that had an influence on some of the principal future events 
of my life. 

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make 
me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that pro- 
fession. In 1 71 7 my brother James returned from England with 
a press and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it 
much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for 
the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, 
my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood 
out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures 
when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an appren- 
tice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed 
journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made 
great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my 
brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with 
the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a 
small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often 
I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when 
the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in 
the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. 

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew 
Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented 
our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, 
and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now 
took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces ; my brother, 
thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me 



I02 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE • 

on composing occasional ballads. One was called TJic Lighthouse 
Tragedy, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain 
Worthilake, with his two daughters ; the other was a sailor's song, 
on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the pirate. They were 
wretched stuff, in the Grub Street ballad style ; and when they 
were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first 
sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a "great 
noise. This flattered my vanity ; but my father discouraged me 
by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were 
generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a 
very bad one ; but as prose writing has been of great use to me 
in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advance- 
ment, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what 
little ability I have in that way. 

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by 
name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes 
disputed, and very fond w^e were of argument, and very desirous 
of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is 
apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely 
disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to 
bring it into practice ; and thence, besides souring and spoiling 
the conversation, is productive of disgusts and perhaps enmities 
where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by 
reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of 
good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except 
lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been 
bred at Edinburgh. 

A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins 
and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, 
and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was im- 
proper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the 
contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally 
more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words ; and sometimes, as 
I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength 
of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were 
not to see one another again for some time, I sat down to put 
my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 103 

He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had 
passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read 
them. Without entering into the discussion, he took occasion to 
talk to me about the manner of my writing ; observed that, though 
I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and point- 
ing {which I owed to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance 
of expression, in method, and in perspicuity, of which he con- 
vinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, 
and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and 
determined to endeavor at improvement. 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It 
was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, 
read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought 
the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With 
this view I took some of the papers, and making short hints of 
the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, 
without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, 
by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it 
had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come 
to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, dis- 
covered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I 
wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using 
them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time 
if I had gone on making verses ; since the continual occasion for 
words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the 
measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me 
under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have 
tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. 
Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse ; 
and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, 
turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections 
of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce 
them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences 
and complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the 
arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with 
the original, I discovered many faults and amended them ; but I 
sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars 



I04 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method 
or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly 
in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was 
extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading 
was at night, after work, or before it began in the morning, or on 
Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evad- 
ing as much as I could the common attendance on public worship 
which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, 
and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as 
it seemed to me, afford time to practice it. 

From Part I, Chap. II 
SEEKING HIS FORTUNE 

My inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I 
might now have gratified them. But, having a trade, and suppos- 
ing myself a pretty good workman, I offered my service to the 
printer in the place, old Mr. William Bradford, who had been 
the first printer in Pennsylvania, but removed from thence upon 
the quarrel of George Keith. He could give me no employment, 
having little to do, and help enough already ; but says he, " My 
son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, 
by death ; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." Phil- 
adelphia was a hundred miles further ; I set out, however, in a 
boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round 
by sea. 

In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore our rotten 
sails to pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill, and drove us 
upon Long Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was 
a passenger too, fell overboard ; when he was sinking, I reached 
through the water to his shock pate, and drew him up, so that 
we got him in again. His ducking sobered him a little, and he 
went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a book, which he 
desired I would dry for him. It proved to be my old favorite 
author, Bunyan's Pilgrim s Progress, in Dutch, finely printed on 
good paper, with copper cuts, a dress better than I had ever seen 
it wear in its own language. I have since found that it has been 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 105 

translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it 
has been more generally read than any other book, except perhaps 
the Bible. Honest John was the first that I know of who mixed 
narration and dialogue ; a method of writing very engaging to the 
reader, who in the most interesting parts finds himself, as it were, 
brought into the company and present at the discourse. De Foe 
in his Cntsoe, his Moll Flanders, Religions Courtship, Family 
Instmctor, and other pieces, has imitated it with success, and 
Richardson has done the same in his Pamela, etc. 

When we drew near the island, we found it was at a place 
where there could be no landing, there being a great surf on the 
stony beach. So we dropped anchor, and swung round towards 
the shore. Some people came down to the water edge and hal- 
looed to us, as we did to them ; but the wind was so high, and 
the surf so loud, that we could not hear so as to understand each 
other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made signs, and 
hallooed that they should fetch us ; but they either did not under- 
stand us, or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and night 
coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should 
abate ; and, in the mean time, the boatman and I concluded to 
sleep, if we could ; and so crowded into the scuttle, with the 
Dutchman, who was still wet ; and the spray beating over the 
head of our boat, leaked through to us, so that we were soon 
almost as wet as he. In this manner we lay all night, with very 
little rest ; but the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to 
reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the water, 
without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the water 
we sailed on being salt. 

In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went in to 
bed ; but having read somewhere that cold water drank plentifully 
was good for a fever, I followed the prescription, sweat plentifully 
most of the night, my fever left me, and in the morning, crossing 
the ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles 
to Burlington, where I was told I should find boats that would 
carry me the rest of the way to Philadelphia. 

It rained very hard all the day ; I was thoroughly soaked, and 
by noon a good deal tired ; so I stopped at a poor inn, where I 



io6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

stayed all night, beginning now to wish that I had never left 
home. I cut so miserable a figure, too, that I found, by the ques- 
tions asked me, I was suspected to be some runaway servant, and 
in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. However, I pro- 
ceeded the next day, and got in the evening to an inn, within 
eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown. He 
entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, 
and, finding I had read a little, became very sociable and friendly. 
Our acquaintance continued as long as he lived. He had been, I 
imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in England, 
or country in Europe, of which he could not give a very particular 
account. He had some letters, and was ingenious, but much of an 
unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to travesty 
the Bible in doggerel verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By this 
means he set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and 
might have hurt weak minds if his work had been published ; but 
it never was. 

At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached 
Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats 
were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to 
go before Tuesday, this being Saturday ; wherefore I returned to 
an old woman in the town, of whom I had bought gingerbread 
to eat on the water, and asked her advice. She invited me to 
lodge at her house till a passage by water should offer ; and being 
tired with my foot traveling, I accepted the invitation. She, under- 
standing I was a printer, would have had me stay at that town and 
follow my business, being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin 
with. She was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek with 
great goodwill, accepting only of a pot of ale in return ; and I 
thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking 
in the evening by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I 
found was going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. 
They took me in, and, as there was no wind, we rowed all the 
way ; and about midnight, not having yet seen the city, some of 
the company were confident we must have passed it, and would 
row no farther ; the others knew not where we were ; so we put 
toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 107 

the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in October, 
and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company 
knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, 
which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived 
there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and 
landed at the Market Street wharf. 

I have been the more particular in this description of my 
journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you 
may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the fig- 
ure I have since made there. I was in my working-dress, my best 
clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; 
my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew 
no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with travel- 
ing, rowing, and want of rest, I was very hungry ; and my whole 
stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling in 
copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, 
who at first refused it on account of my rowing ; but I insisted on 
their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he 
has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through 
fear of being thought to have but little. 

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market- 
house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, 
and inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's 
he directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intend- 
ing such as we had in Boston ; but they, it seems, were not made 
in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was 
told they had none such. So not considering or knowing the dif- 
ference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his 
bread, I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He 
gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at 
the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets, walked 
off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went 
up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of 
Mr. Read, my future wife's father ; when she, standing at the 
door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awk- 
ward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chest- 
nut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, 



io8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

and coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf, 
near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river 
water ; and being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two 
to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat 
with us, and were waiting to go farther. 

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this 
time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking 
the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great 
meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among 
them, and after looking round a while and hearing nothing said, 
being very drowsy through labor and want of rest the preceding 
night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke 
up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, 
the first house I was in or slept in, in Philadelphia. 

Walking down again toward the river, and looking in the faces 
of people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I liked, 
and, accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger 
could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three 
Mariners. " Here," says he, ""is one place that entertains strangers, 
but it is not a reputable house ; if thee wilt walk with me, I '11 
show thee a better." He brought me to the Crooked Billet in 
Water Street. Here I got a dinner ; and while I was eating it, 
several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected 
from my youth and appearance that I might be some runaway. 

After dinner, my sleepiness returned, and being shown to a bed, 
I lay down without undressing, and slept till six in the evening, 
was called to supper, went to bed again very early, and slept 
soundly till next morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, 
and went to Andrew Bradford the printer's. I found in the shop 
the old man his father, whom I had seen at New York, and who, 
traveling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before me. He 
introduced me to his son, who received me civilly, gave me a 
breakfast, but told me he did not at present want a hand, being 
lately supplied with one ; but there was another printer in town, 
lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me ; if not, 
I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me 
a little work to do now and then till fuller business should offer. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1 09 

The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new 
printer; and when we found him, "Neighbor," says Bradford, 
" I have brought to see you a young man of your business ; per- 
haps you may want such a one," He asked me a few questions, 
put a composing stick in my hand to see how I worked, and then 
said he would employ me soon, though he had just then nothing 
for me to do ; and taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen 
before, to be one of the town's people that had a good will for 
him, entered into a conversation on his present undertaking and 
prospects ; while Bradford, not discovering that he was the other 
printer's father, on Keimer's saying he expected soon to get the 
greatest part of the business into his own hands, drew him on by 
artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, 
what interests he relied on, and in what manner he intended to 
proceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one 
of them was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. 
Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surprised when 
I told him who the old man was. 

Keimer's printing-house, I found, consisted of an old shattered 
press, and one small, worn-out font of English, which he was then 
using himself, composing an Elegy on Aquila Rose, before men- 
tioned, an ingenious young man, of excellent character, much 
respected in the town, clerk of the Assembly, and a pretty poet. 
Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He could not be 
said to write them, for his manner was to compose them in the 
types directly out of his head. So there being no copy, but one 
pair of cases, and the Elegy likely to require all the letter, no one 
could help him. I endeavored to put his press (which he had not 
yet used, and of which he understood nothing) into order fit to be 
worked with ; and promising to come and print off his Elegy as 
soon as he should have got it ready, I returned to Bradford's, who 
gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and 
dieted. A few days after, Keimer sent for me to print off the 
Elegy. And now he had got another pair of cases, and a pamphlet 
to reprint, on which he set me to work. 

These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. 
Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate ; and 



no READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Keimer, though something of a scholar, was a mere compositor 
knowing nothing of presswork. He had been one of the French 
prophets, and could act their enthusiastic agitations. At this time 
he did not profess any particular religion, but something of all on 
occasion ; was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward 
found, a good deal of the knave in his composition. He did not 
like my lodging at Bradford's while I worked with him. He had 
a house indeed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me ; 
but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read's before mentioned, who was 
the owner of his house ; and my chest and clothes being come by 
this time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes 
of Miss Read than I had done when she first happened to see me 
eating my roll in the street. . . . 



THOMAS GODFREY 

[Born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1 736 ; died in North Caro- 
lina, August 3, 1763] 

THE WISH 

I only ask a moderate fate. 
And, though not in obscurity, 
I would not, yet, be placed too high ; 
Between the two extremes Fd be. 
Not meanly low, nor yet too great", 
From both contempt and envy free. 

If no glittering wealth I have. 
Content of bounteous heaven I crave, 
For that is more 

Than all the Indian's shining store, 
To be unto the dust a slave. 
With heart, my little I will use, 
Nor let pain my life devour. 
Or for a griping heir refuse 
Myself one pleasant hour. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1 1 1 

No stately edifice to rear ; 
My wish would bound a small retreat, 
In temperate air, and furnished neat : 
No ornaments would I prepare. 
No costly labors of the loom 
Should e'er adorn my humble room ; 
To gild my roof I naught require 
But the stern Winter's friendly fire. 

Free from tumultuous cares and noise, 
If gracious Heaven my wish would give. 
While sweet content augments my joys. 
Thus my remaining hours I'd live. 
By arts ignoble never rise. 
The miser's ill-got wealth despise ; 
But blest my leisure hours I'd spend. 
The Muse enjoying, and my friend. 



AMYNTOR 

Long had Amyntor free from love remained ; 
The God, enraged to see his power disdained, 
Bent his best bow, and, aiming at his breast 
The fatal shaft, he thus the swain addrest : 

" Hear me, hear me, senseless rover, — 
Soon thou now shalt be a lover, 

Cupid will his power maintain ; 
Haughty Delia shall enslave thee. 
Thou, who thus insulting brav'st me. 

Shall, unpitied, drag the chain." 

He ceased, and quick he shot the pointed dart ; 
Far short it fell, nor reached Amyntor's heart ; 
The angry God was filled with vast surprise ; 
Abashed he stood, while thus the swain replies : 



112 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" Think not, Cupid, vain deceiver, 
I will own thy power ever. 

Guarded from thy arts by wine ; 
Haughty Beauty ne'er shall grieve me, 
Bacchus still shall e'er relieve me, 
All his rosy joys are mine ; 
All his rosy joys are mine." 



NATHANIEL EVANS 

[Born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1742; died at Philadelphia, 
October 29, 1767] 

TO MAY 
From "Poems on Several Occasions," 1772 

Now had the beam of Titan gay 
Ushered in the blissful May, 
Scattering from his pearly bed. 
Fresh dew on every mountain's head ; 
Nature mild and debonair, 
To thee, fair maid, yields up her care. 
May, with gentle plastic hand. 
Clothes in floweiy robe the land ; 
O'er the vales the cowslip spreads. 
And eglantine beneath the shades ; 
Violets blue befringe each fountain, 
Woodbines lace each steepy mountain ; 
Hyacinths their sweets diffuse, 
And the rose its blush renews ; 
With the rest of Flora's train, 
Decking lowly dale or plain. 

Through creation's range, sweet May ! 
Nature's children own thy sway — 
Whether in the crystal flood, 
Amorous, sport the finny brood ; 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 113 

Or the feathered tribes declare 

That they breathe thy genial air, 

While they warble in each grove 

Sweetest notes of artless love ; 

Or their wound the beasts proclaim, 

Smitten with a fiercer flame ; 

Or the passions higher rise, 

Sparing none beneath the skies, 

But swaying soft the human mind 

With feelings of ecstatic kind — 

Through wide creation's range, sweet May! 

All nature's children own thy sway. 

Oft will I, (e'er Phosphor's light 
Quits the glimmering skirts of night) 
Meet thee in the clover field. 
Where thy beauties thou shalt yield 
To my fancy, quick and warm. 
Listening to the dawn's alarm, 
Sounded loud by Chanticleer, 
In peals that sharply pierce the ear. 
And, as Sol his flaming car 
Urges up the vaulted air. 
Shunning quick the scorching ray, 
I will to some covert stray, 
Coolly bowers or latent dells. 
Where light-footed Silence dwells, 
And whispers to my heaven-born dream. 
Fair Schuylkill, by thy winding stream ! 
There I '11 devote full many an hour. 
To the still-fingered Morphean power. 
And entertain my thirsty soul 
With draughts from Fancy's fairy bowl ; 
Or mount her orb of varied hue. 
And scenes of heaven and earth review. 



114 READINGS F'ROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ODE TO MY INGENIOUS FRIEND, MR. THOMAS GODFREY 

While you, dear Tom, are forced to roam, 
In search of fortune, far from home. 

O'er bays, o'er seas and mountains ; 
I too, debarred the soft retreat 
Of shady groves, and murmur sweet 

Of silver prattling fountains, 

Must mingle with the bustling throng, 
And bear my load of cares along, 

Like any other sinner : 
For, where 's the ecstasy in this, 
To loiter in poetic bliss. 

And go without a dinner ? 

Flaccus, we know, immortal Bard ! 
With mighty kings and statesmen fared. 

And lived in cheerful plenty : 
But now, in these degenerate days, 
The slight reward of empty praise. 

Scarce one receives in twenty. 

Well might the Roman swan, along 
The pleasing Tiber pour his song, 

When blessed with ease and quiet ; 
Oft did he grace Maecenas' board. 
Who would for him throw by the lord. 

And in Falernian riot. 

But dearest Tom ! these days are past, 
And we are in a climate cast 

Where few the muse can relish ; 
Where all the doctrine now that 's told. 
Is that a shining heap of gold 

Alone can man embellish. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1 15 

Then since 't is thus, my honest friend, 
If you be wise, my strain attend, 

And counsel sage adhere to ; 
With me, henceforward, join the crowd, 
And Hke the rest proclaim aloud. 

That money is all virtue ! 

Then may we both, in time, retreat 
To some fair villa, sweetly neat. 

To entertain the muses ; 
And then life's noise and trouble leave — 
Supremely blest, we '11 never grieve 

At what the world refuses. 



JOHN WOOLMAN 

[Born at Northampton, New Jersey, 1720; died at York, England, 
October 7, i 772] 

CHIEF EVENTS DURING THE YEARS 1749 TO 1753 
From the "Journal," 1772, Chap. Ill 

About this time, believing it good for me to settle, and thinking 
seriously about a companion, my heart was turned to the Lord, with 
desire that he would give me wisdom to proceed therein agreeably 
to his will ; and he was pleased to give me a well-inclined damsel, 
Sarah Ellis; to whom I was married the i8th day of the eighth 
month, in the year 1749. 

In the fall of the year 1750, died my father, Samuel Woolman, 
with a fever, aged about sixty years. 

In his lifetime he manifested much care for us his children, that 
in our youth we might learn to fear the Lord ; often endeavoring 
to imprint in our minds the true principles of virtue, and particularly 
to cherish in us a spirit of tenderness, not only towards poor people, 
but also towards all creatures of which we had the command. 

After my return from Carolina, in the year 1746, I made some 
observations on keeping slaves, which some time before his decease 



li6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

I showed him. He perused the manuscript, proposed a few altera- 
tions, and appeared well satisfied that I found a concern on that 
account. In his last sickness, as I was watching with him one night, 
he being so far spent that there was no expectation of his recovery, 
but had the perfect use of his understanding, he asked me concern- 
ing the manuscript, whether I expected soon to proceed to take 
the advice of Friends in publishing it ; and, after some conversation 
thereon, said, I have all along been deeply affected with the oppres- 
sion of the poor negroes ; and now, at last, my concern for them 
is as great as ever. 

By his direction, I had written his will in a time of health, and 
that night he desired me to read it to him, which I did, and he said 
it was agreeable to his mind. He then made mention of his end, 
which he believed was now near, and signified that, though he was 
sensible of many imperfections in the course of his life, yet his ex- 
perience of the power of truth, and of the love and goodness of God 
from time to time, even until now, was such that he had no doubt 
but that, in leaving this life, he should enter into one more happy. 

The next day his sister Elizabeth came to see him, and told him 
of the decease of their sister Ann, who died a few days before. 
He said, I reckon sister Ann was free to leave this world ? Elizabeth 
said she was. He then said, I also am free to leave it ; and being 
in great weakness of body, said, I hope I shall shortly go to rest. 
He continued in a weighty frame of mind, and was sensible until 
near the last. 

On the second day of the ninth month, in the year 175 i, feeling 
drawings in my mind to visit friends at the Great Meadows, in the 
upper part of West Jersey, with the unity of our monthly meeting, 
I went there, and had some searching, laborious exercise amongst 
friends in those parts, and found inward peace therein. 

In the ninth month of the year 1753, in company with my well- 
esteemed friend John Sykes, and with the unity of Friends, I trav- 
elled about two weeks, visiting Friends in Buck County. We labored 
in the love of the gospel, according to the measure received ; and, 
through the mercies of him who is strength to the poor who trust 
in him, we found satisfaction in our visit. In the next winter, way 
opening to visit Friends' families within the compass of our monthly 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD . 1 17 

meeting, partly by the labors of two Friends from Pennsylvania, 
I joined in some part of the work ; having had a desire for some 
time that it might go forward amongst us. 

About this time, a person at some distance lying sick, his brother 
came to me to write his will. I knew he had slaves; and asking his 
brother, was told he intended to leave them as slaves to his children. 
As writing is a profitable employ, and as offending sober people was 
disagreeable to my inclination, I was straitened in my mind ; but as 
I looked to the Lord, he inclined my heart to his testimony. I told 
the man that I believed the practice of continuing slavery to this 
people was not right, and had a scruple in my mind against doing 
writings of that kind ; that, though many in our Society kept them 
as slaves, still I was not easy to be concerned in it, and desired to 
be excused from going to write the will. I spake to him in the fear 
of the Lord ; and he made no reply to what I said, but went away : 
he also had some concern in the practice, and I thought he was dis- 
pleased with me. In this case, I had a fresh confirmation that act- 
ing contrary to present outward interests, from a motive of divine 
love, and in regard to truth and righteousness, and thereby incurring 
the resentments of people, opens the way to a treasure better than 
silver, and to a friendship exceeding the friendship of men. 

The manuscript before mentioned having laid by me several years, 
the publication of it rested weightily upon me ; and this year I offered 
it to the revisal of Friends, who, having examined and made some 
small alterations in it, directed a number of copies thereof to be 
published and dispersed amongst Friends. 



Ii8 . READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



SAMUEL ADAMS 

[Born at Boston, Massachusetts, September 27, 1722; died at Boston, 
October 2, 1803] 

ON AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE — IN PHILADELPHIA, 
AUGUST 1, 1776 (EXTRACT) 

Countrymen and Brethren : I would gladly have declined 
an honor to which I find myself unequal. I have not the calmness 
and impartiality which the infinite importance of this occasion 
demands. I will not deny the charges of my enemies, that resent- 
ment for the accumulated injuries of our country, and an ardor 
for her glory, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive me of that ac- 
curacy of judgment and expression which men of cooler passions 
may possess. Let me beseech you then, to hear me with caution, 
to examine without prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into 
which I may be hurried by zeal. 

Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind. Your 
unperverted understandings can best determine on subjects of a 
practical nature. The positions and plans which are said to be 
above the comprehension of the multitude may be always suspected 
to be visionary and fruitless. He who made all men hath made 
the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all. 

Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery in religion ; for 
you is reserved the honor of levelling the Popery of politics. They 
opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man 
to judge for himself in religion. Are we sufficient for the compre- 
hension of the sublimest spiritual truths, and unequal to material 
and temporal ones ? Heaven hath trusted us with the management 
of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the 
present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will 
make us happy. "You can discern," say they, "objects distant 
and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp. Let us 
have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as 
you please the interests of futurity." This day, I trust, the reign 
of political Protestantism will commence. We have explored the 
temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to, 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 119 

has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart 
Hke the nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sover- 
eign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in 
heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds His subjects assuming 
that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direction which He 
bestowed upon them. From the rising to the setting sun, may 
His kingdom come, 

JAMES OTIS 

[Born at Barnstable, Massachusetts, February 5, 1725 ; died at Andover, 
Massachusetts, May 23, 1783] 

ON THE WRITS OF ASSISTANCE — BEFORE THE SUPERIOR 
COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS, FEBRUARY, 1761 (EXTRACT) 

May it please your Honors : I was desired by one of the 
court to look into the books, and consider the question now before 
them concerning Writs of Assistance. I have accordingly consid- 
ered it, and appear not only in obedience to your order, but likewise 
in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented an- 
other petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject. 
And I take this opportunity to declare, that whether under a fee 
or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee), I will to my 
dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given 
me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy 
on the other, as this writ of assistance is. 

It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the 
most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles 
of law, that ever was found in an English law-book. I must there- 
fore beg your honors' patience and attention to.the whole range of 
an argument, that may perhaps appear uncommon in many things, 
as well as to points of learning that are more remote and unusual ; 
that the whole tendency of my design may the more easily be 
perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the force of them 
be better felt. I shall not think much of my pains in this cause, 
as I engage in it from principle. I was solicited to argue this 
cause as Advocate-General ; and because I would not, I have been 
charged with desertion from my office. To this charge I can give 



I20 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

a very sufificient answer. I renounce that office, and I argue this 
cause from the same principle ; and I argue it with the greater 
pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time when we hear 
the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he 
glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people 
are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown ; 
and as it is in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which 
in former periods of history cost one king of England his head, 
and another his throne. I have taken more pains in this cause 
than I ever will take again, although my engaging in this and an- 
other popular cause has raised much resentment. But I think I 
can sincerely declare, that I cheerfully submit myself to every 
odious name for conscience' sake ; and from my soul I despise all 
those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let 
the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. 
The only principles of public conduct, that are worthy of a gentle- 
man or a man, are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, 
and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. 

These manly sentiments, in private life, make the good citizens ; 
in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say that, when 
brought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God that I may 
never be brought to the melancholy trial, but if ever I should, it 
will be then known how far I can reduce to practice principles 
which I know to be founded in truth. In the meantime I will 
proceed to the subject of this writ. 

PATRICK HENRY 

[Born at Studley, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died at Red Hill, Virginia, 
June 6, 1 799] 

SPEECH IN THE CONVENTION OF DELEGATES, MARCH 28, 
1775 (EXTRACTS) 

Mr. President : No man thinks more highly than I do of the 
patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who 
have just addressed the House. But different men often see the 
same subjects in different lights ; and, therefore, I hope that it 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD I2i 

will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertain- 
ing as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall 
speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is not 
time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful 
moment to the country. For my own part I consider it as nothing 
less than a question of freedom or slavery ; and in proportion to 
the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of debate. 
It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and ful- 
fil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. 
Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of 
giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward 
my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, 
which I revere above all earthly kings, 

Mr, President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions 
of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and 
listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. 
Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous 
struggle for liberty ,? Are we disposed to be of the number of 
those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the 
things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation ? For my 
part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know 
the whole truth ; to know the worst and to provide for it, 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is 
the lamp of experience, I know of no way of judging of the future 
but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what 
there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last 
ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been 
pleased to solace themselves and the House, Is it that insidious 
smile with which our petition has been lately received ? Trust it 
not, sir ; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves 
to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious re- 
ception of our petition comports with these warlike preparations 
which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies 
necessary to a work of love and reconciliation.? Have we shown 
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called 
in to win back our love } Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These 
are the implements of war and subjugation ; the last arguments 



122 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this mar- 
tial array, if its purpose is not to force us to submission ? Can 
gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great 
Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this 
accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir, she has none. They 
are meant for us ; they can be meant for no other. They are sent 
over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British min- 
istry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose 
them ? Shall we try argument ? Sir, we have been trying that for 
the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject.? 
Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it 
is capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty 
and humble supplication ? What terms shall we find which have 
not been already exhausted .? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, de- 
ceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could 
be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have 
petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we have supplicated ; we have 
prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its inter- 
position to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parlia- 
ment. Our petitions have been slighted ; our remonstrances have 
produced additional violence and insult ; our supplications have 
been disregarded ; and we have been spurned, with contempt, 
from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we 
indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no 
longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean 
to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have 
been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the 
noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which 
we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious ob- 
ject of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight ! I repeat it, 
sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts 
is all that is left us ! 

********** 

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry 
peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! 
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 123 

the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the 
field ! Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? 
What would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as 
to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it. 
Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take ; but 
as for me, give me liberty, or give me death ! 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 

[Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22, 1732; died at Mount 
Vernon, Virginia, December 14, 1799] 

SPEECH IN CONGRESS ON HIS BEING MADE COMMANDER- 
IN-CHIEF, JUNE 16, 1775 

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS 

Mr. President : Though I am truly sensible of the high honor 
done me, in this appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a con- 
sciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be 
equal to the extensive and important trust. However, as the Con- 
gress desire it, I will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert 
every power I possess in their service, and for the support of the 
glorious cause. I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for 
this distinguished testimony of their approbation. 

But, lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavorable to my 
reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in 
the room, that I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do 
not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. 

As to pay, sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress, that, as no 
pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this 
arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and 
happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep 
an exact account of my expenses. Those, I doubt not, they will 
discharge ; and that is all I desire. 



124 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

LETTER TO HIS WIFE UPON BEING MADE COMMANDER- 
IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMY 

TO MRS. MARTHA WASHINGTON 

My Dearest : I am now set down to write to you on a subject 
which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is 
greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasi- 
ness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress, 
that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause 
shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to pro- 
ceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it. 

You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you in the 
most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, 
I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from 
my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a con- 
sciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that 
I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at 
home, than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if 
my stay were to be seven times seven years. But as it has been a 
kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope 
that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose. 
You might, and I suppose did perceive, from the tenor of my 
letters, that I was apprehensive I could not avoid this appoint- 
ment, as I did not pretend to intimate when I should return. 
That was the case. It was utterly out of my power to refuse this 
appointment without exposing my character to such censures as 
would have reflected dishonor upon myself, and given pain to my 
friends. This, I am sure, could not, and ought not, to be pleasing 
to you, and must have lessened me considerably in my own esteem. 
I shall rely, therefore, confidently on that Providence which has 
heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me, not doubting but 
that I shall return safe to you in the fall. I shall feel no pain 
from the toil or the danger of the campaign ; my unhappiness 
will flow from the uneasiness I know you will feel from being left 
alone. I therefore beg that you will summon your whole fortitude, 
and pass your time as agreeably as possible. Nothing will give 
me so much sincere satisfaction as to hear this, and to hear it 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 125 

from your own pen. My earnest and ardent desire is, that you 
would pursue any plan that is most likely to produce content and 
a tolerable degree of tranquillity ; as it must add greatly to my 
uneasy feelings to hear that you are dissatisfied or complaining at 
what I really could not avoid. 

As life is always uncertain, and common prudence dictates to 
every man the necessity of settling his temporal concerns while it 
is in his power, and while the mind is calm and undisturbed, I 
have, since I came to this place (for I had not time to do it before 
I left home), got Colonel Pendleton to draft a will for me, by the 
directions I gave him, which I will now enclose. The provision 
made for you in case of my death, will, I hope, be agreeable. 

I shall add nothing more, as I have several letters to write, but 
to desire that you will remember me to your friends, and to assure 
you that I am, with the most unfeigned -regard, my dear Patsy, 
your affectionate, &c. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 

[Born at Shadwell, Virginia, April 3, 1743 ; died at Monticello, Virginia, 

July 4, 1 8 26] 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS, AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
STATES, MARCH 4, 1801 (EXTRACT) 

Friends and Fellow-Citizens : Called upon to undertake 
the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself 
of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here 
assembled, to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which 
they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere 
consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach 
it with those anxious and awful presentiments, which the greatness 
of the charge, and the weakness of my powers, so justly inspire. 
A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing 
all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in 
commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advanc- 
ing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye ; when I 
contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the 



126 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the 
issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contempla- 
tion, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. 
Utterly, indeed, should I despair, did not the presence of many, 
whom I see here, remind me, that in other high authorities provided 
by our Constitution, I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and 
of zeal, on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentle- 
men, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, 
and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for 
that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety 
the vessel in which we are all embarked, amidst the conflicting 
elements of a troubled world. 

********** 

Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue our federal 
and republican principles ; our attachment to union and represent- 
ative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean 
from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe ; too 
high-minded to endure the degradation of the others, possessing 
a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the 
thousandth and thousandth generation, entertaining a due sense of 
our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisition 
of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow- 
citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their 
sense of them, enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed 
and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, 
truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, acknowledging 
and adoring an overruling Providence, which, by all its dispensa- 
tions, proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, and 
bis greater happiness hereafter ; with all these blessings, what more 
is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people .-' Still one 
thing more, fellow-citizens, a wise and frugal government, which 
shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them 
otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and im- 
provement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread 
it has earned. This is the sum of good government ; and this is 
necessary to close the circle of our felicities. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1 27 

AN ANECDOTE OF DOCTOR FRANKLIN 
From Jefferson's "Autobiography" 

When the Declaration of Independence was under the considera- 
tion of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it 
which gave offence to some members. The words " Scotch and other 
foreign auxiliaries " excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that 
country. Severe strictures on the conduct of the British King, in 
negotiating our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the 
importation of slaves, were disapproved by some Southern gentle- 
men, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence 
of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions were immediately 
yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts 
of the instrument. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived 
that I was not insensible to these mutilations. " I have made it a 
rule," he said, " whenever in my power, to avoid being the draughts- 
man of papers to be reviewed by a public body, I took my lesson 
from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journey- 
man printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having 
served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first 
concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscrip- 
tion. He composed it in these words, ' John Thompson, Hatter, 
makes and sells hats for ready money,' with a figure of a hat sub- 
joined ; but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their 
amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word Hatter 
tautologous, because followed by the words ' makes hats,' which 
showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed 
that the word makes might as well be omitted, because his cus- 
tomers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their 
minds, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. 
A third said he thought the words for ready uiojiey were useless, 
as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Everyone 
who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the 
inscription now stood, "John Thompson sells hats.' 'Sells hats,' 
says his next friend ! ' Why nobody would expect you to give them 
away, what then is the use of that word }' It was stricken out, and 



128 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Jiats followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. 
So the inscription was reduced ultimately to " John Thompson ' 
with the figure of a hat subjoined." 

A TRIBUTE TO FRANCE 
From the " Autobiography " 

And here, I cannot leave this great and good country without 
expressing my sense of its pre-eminence of character among the 
nations of the earth. A more benevolent people I have never 
known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in their select friend- 
ships. Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unpar- 
alleled, and the hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had 
conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence, too, 
in science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men, 
the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their 
conversation, give a charm to their society, to be found no where 
else. In a comparison of this, with other countries, we have the 
proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles, after the battle 
of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, 
and the second to Themistocles. So, ask the travelled inhabitant 
of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live } 
Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and 
the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. 
Which would be your second choice .'' France. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 129 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

[Born in the island of Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757; died at New 
York, July 12, 1804] 

ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING THE FEDERAL CON- 
STITUTION—CONVENTION OF NEW YORK, JUNE 24, 1788 

(EXTRACTS) 

I am persuaded, Mr. Chairman, that I in my turn shall be in- 
dulged, in addressing the committee. We all, in equal sincerity, 
profess to be anxious for the establishment of a republican govern- 
ment, on a safe and solid basis. It is the object of the wishes of 
every honest man in the United States, and I presume that I shall 
not be disbelieved, when I declare, that it is an object, of all others, 
the nearest and most dear to my own heart. The means of accom- 
plishing this great purpose become the most important study which 
can interest mankind. It is our duty to examine all those means 
with peculiar attention, and to choose the best and most effectual. 
It is our duty to draw from nature, from reason, from examples, 
the best principles of policy, and to pursue and apply them in the 
formation of our government. We should contemplate and com- 
pare the systems, which, in this examination, come under our view ; 
distinguish, with a careful eye, the defects and excellencies of each, 
and discarding the former, incorporate the latter, as far as circum- 
stances will admit, into our Constitution. If we pursue a different 
course and neglect this duty, we shall probably disappoint the 
expectations of our country and of the world. 

Gentlemen, in their reasoning, have placed the interests of the 
several States and those of the United States in contrast ; this is 
not a fair view of the subject ; they must necessarily be involved 
in each other. What we apprehend is, that some sinister prejudice, 
or some prevailing passion, may assume the form of genuine in- 
terest. The influence of these is as powerful as the most perma- 
nent conviction of the public good ; and against this influence we 
ought to provide. The logical interests of a State ought in every 



I30 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

case to give way to the interests of the Union ; for when a sacri- 
fice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an 
apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that 
the small good ought never to oppose the great one. When you 
assemble from your several counties in the Legislature, were every 
member to be guided only by the apparent interests of his county, 
government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual 
accommodation and sacrifice of local advantages to general expedi- 
ency ; but the spirit of a mere popular assembly would rarely be 
actuated by this important principle. It is therefore absolutely 
necessary that the Senate should be so formed, as to be unbiassed 
by false conceptions of the real interests, or undue attachment to 
the apparent good of their several States. 



THOMAS PAINE 
[Born at Thetford, England, January 29, 1737; died at New York, June 8, 1 809] 

ON THE SEPARATION OF BRITAIN AND AMERICA 
From "Common Sense," 1776 

Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The 
blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, " 'tis time 
to part." Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed 
England and America is a strong and natural proof that the author- 
ity of the one over the other was never the design of heaven. The 
time, likewise, at which the continent was discovered, adds weight 
to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled increases 
the force of it. The Reformation was preceded by the discovery 
of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanc- 
tuary to the persecuted in future vears, when home should afford 
neither friendship nor safety. 

The authority of Great Britain over this continent is a form 
of government which sooner or later must have an end : and a 
serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under 
the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls " the present 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 131 

constitution " is merely temporary. As parents, we can have no 
joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to 
insure anything that we may bequeath to posterity ; and by a plain 
method of argument, as we are running the next generation into 
debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly 
and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we 
should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few 
years farther into life ; that eminence will present a prospect which 
a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight. 

Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet 
I am inclined to believe that all those who espouse the doctrine 
of reconciliation may be included within the following descriptions : 
Interested men, who are not to be trusted ; weak men, who cannot 
see ; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the 
European world than it deserves : and this last class, by an ill- 
judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this 
continent than all the other three. 

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene 
of sorrow ; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to 
make them feel the precariousness with which all American prop- 
erty is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us a few 
moments to Boston ; that seat of wretchedness will teach us wis- 
dom, and instruct us forever to renounce a power in whom we can 
have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but 
a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now no other 
alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered 
by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and 
plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present situation 
they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a general 
attack for their relief they would be exposed to the fury of both 
armies. 

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences 
of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, 
" Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But ex- 
amine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of 
reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether 
you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power 



132 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

that hath carried fire and sword into your land ? If you cannot 
do all these, then you are only deceiving yourselves, and by your 
delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future connection 
with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced 
and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present con- 
venience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched 
than the first. But if you say that you can still pass the violations 
over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt ? Hath your prop- 
erty been destroyed before your face ? Are your wife and children 
destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on .? Have you lost 
a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and 
wretched survivor .? If you have not, then are you not a judge of 
those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with 
the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, 
friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, 
you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant. 

THE FOPPERY OF TITLES 
From the "Rights of Man," Part I, 1791 

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The 
thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery 
in the human character which degrades it. It renders man diminu- 
tive in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in 
things which are little. It talks about its fine riband like a girl, 
and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of some 
antiquity, says, '' When I was a child, I thought as a child ; but 
when I became a man, I put away childish things." 

It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France that the folly 
of titles has been abolished. It has outgrown the baby-clothes of 
count and duke, and breeched itself in manhood. France has not 
levelled, it has exalted. It has put down the dwarf to put up the 
man. The insignificance of a senseless word like duke, count, or 
earl, has ceased to please. Even those who possess them have 
disowned the gibberish, and, as they outgrew the rickets, have 
despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its 
native home, society, condemns the gewgaws that separate him 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 133 

from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to 
contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within 
the Bastile of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life 
of man. 

Is it, then, any wonder that titles should fall in France ? Is it 
not a greater wonder that they should be kept up anywhere ? 
What are they ? What is their worth, nay, " what is their 
amount? " When we think or speak of a judge, or a general, we 
associate with it the ideas of office and character ; we think of 
gravity in the one, and bravery in the other ; but when we use a 
word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the 
vocabulary of Adam, there is not such an animal as a duke or 
a count ; neithefr can we connect any certain idea to the words. 
Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a 
child or a man, or a rider or a horse,- is all equivocal. What 
respect, then, can be paid to that which describes nothing, and 
which means nothing ? Imagination has given figure and charac- 
ter to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribes ; but titles 
baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript. 

But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them 
in contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It 
is common opinion only that makes them anything or nothing, or 
worse than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for 
they take themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them. 
This species of imaginary consequence has visibly declined in 
every part of Europe, and it hastens to its exit as the world of 
reason continues to rise. There was a time when the lowest class 
of what are called nobility was more thought of than the highest 
is now, and when a man in armor riding through Christendom in 
search of adventures was more stared at than a modern duke. 
The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen by being 
laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate. The patriots 
of France have discovered in good time that rank and dignity in 
society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. 
It must now take the substantial ground of character, instead of 
the chimerical ground of titles : and they have brought their titles 
to the altar, and made of them a burnt-offering to reason. 



134 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

LIBERTY TREE 
Published in the Fennsylvaiiia Magazine, 1775 

In a chariot of light from the regions of day, 

The Goddess of Liberty came ; 
Ten thousand celestials directed the way, 

And hither conducted the dame. 
A fair budding branch from the gardens above, 

Where millions with millions agree, 
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love. 

And the plant she named Liberty Tree. 

The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground, 

Like a native it flourished and bore ; 
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around, 

To seek out this peaceable shore. 
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came. 

For freemen like brothers agree ; 
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued. 

And their temple was Liberty Tree. 

Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old, 

Their bread in contentment they ate, 
Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold. 

The cares of the grand and the great. 
With timber and tar they old England supplied. 

And supported her power on the sea ; 
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat. 

For the honor of Liberty Tree. 

But hear, O ye swains, 't is a tale most profane. 

How all the tyrannical powers, 
Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain, 

To cut down this guardian of ours ; 
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms. 

Through the land let the sound of it flee. 
Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer. 

In defence of our Liberty Tree. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 135 

PHILIP FRENEAU 

[Born at New York, i 752 ; died near Freehold, New Jersey, 
December 18, 1832] 

THE PICTURES OF COLUMBUS 
PICTURE IV. COLUMBUS ADDRESSES KING FERDINAND 

Prince and pride of Spain ! while meaner crowns, 
Pleas 'd with the shadow of monarchial sway, 
Exact obedience from some paltry tract 
Scarce worth the pain and toil of governing, 
Be thine the generous care to send thy fame 
Beyond the knowledge, or the guess of man. 

This gulphy deep (that bounds our western reign 
So long by civil feuds and wars disgrac'd) 
Must be the passage to some other shore 
Where nations dwell, children of early time, 
Basking in the warm sunshine of the south, 
Who some false deity, no doubt, adore. 
Owning no virtue in the potent cross : 
What honor, sire, to plant your standards there. 
And souls recover to our holy faith 
That now in paths of dark perdition stray, 
Warp'd to his worship by the evil one ! 

Think not that Europe and the Asian waste. 
Of Africa, where barren sands abound, 
Are the sole gems in Neptune's bosom laid : 
Think not the world a vast extended plain : 
See yond bright orbs, that through the ether move. 
All globular ; this earth a globe like them 
Walks her own rounds, attended by the moon, 
Bright comrade, but with borrowed lustre bright. 
If all the surface of this mighty round 
Be one wide ocean of unfathom'd depth 
Bounding the little space already known, 
Nature must have forgot her wonted wit 



136 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And made a monstrous havock of proportion. 
If her proud depths were not restrain'd by lands, 
And broke by continents of vast extent 
Existing somewhere under western skies, 
Far other waves would roll before the storms 
Than ever yet have burst on Europe's shores, 
Driving before them deluge and confusion. 

But Nature will preserve what she has plann'd : 
And the whole suffrage of antiquity, 
Platonic dreams, and reason's plainer page 
All point at something that we ought to see 
Buried behind the waters of the west, 
Clouded with shadows of uncertainty. 
The time is come for some sublime event 
Of mighty fame : — mankind are children yet, 
And hardly dream what treasures they possess 
Jn the dark bosom of the fertile main, 
Unfathom'd, unattempted, unexplor'd. 
These, mighty prince, I offer to reveal, 
And by the magnet's aid, if you supply 
Ships and some gallant hearts, will hope to bring 
From distant climes, news worthy of a king. 

PICTURE XII. COLUMBUS IN CHAINS 

Are these the honors they reserve for me. 

Chains for the man that gave new worlds to Spain ! 

Rest here, my swelling heart ! — O kings, O queens. 

Patrons of monsters, and their progeny. 

Authors of wrong, and slaves to fortune merely ! 

Why was I seated by my prince's side, 

Honour'd, caress'd like some first peer of Spain.? 

Was it that I might fall most suddenly 

From honour's summit to the sink of scandal ? 

'Tis done, 'tis done ! — what madness is ambition ! 

What is there in that little breath of men. 

Which they call Fame, that should induce the brave 

To forfeit ease and that domestic bliss 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 137 

Which is the lot of happy ignorance, 
Less glorious aims, and dull humility ? — 
Whoe'er thou art that shall aspire to honour. 
And on the strength and vigor of the mind 
Vainly depending, court a monarch's favour, 
Pointing the way to vast extended empire ; 
First count your pay to be ingratitude, 
Then chains and prisons, and disgrace like mine ! 
Each wretched pilot now shall spread his sails. 
And treading in my footsteps, hail new worlds, 
Which, but for me, had still been empty visions. 

DEATH'S EPITAPH 
From "The House of Night" 

Death in this tomb his weary bones hath laid, 
Sick of dominion o'er the human kind ; 
Behold what devastations he hath made, 
Survey the millions by his arm confined. 

" Six thousand years has sovereign sway been mine, 
None but myself can real glory claim ; 
Great Regent of the world I reigned alone, 
And princes trembled when my mandate came. 

" Vast and unmatched throughout the world, my fame 
Takes place of gods, and asks no mortal date — 
No : by myself, and by the heavens, I swear 
Not Alexander's name is half so great. 

" Nor swords nor darts my prowess could withstand. 
All quit their arms, and bowed to my decree, — 
Even mighty Julius died beneath thy hand. 
For slaves and Caesars were the same to me ! " 

Traveller, wouldst thou his noblest trophies seek, 
Search in no narrow spot obscure for those ; 
The sea profound, the surface of all land, 
Is moulded with the myriads of his foes. 



138 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE INDIAN BURYING-GROUND 

In spite of all the learned have said, 

I still by old opinion keep ; 
The posture that we give the dead 

Points out the soul's eternal sleep. 

Not so the ancients of these lands ; — 
The Indian, when from life released. 

Again is seated with his friends. 
And shares again the joyous feast. 

His imaged birds, and painted bowl, 
And venison, for a journey dressed. 

Bespeak the nature of the soul, 
Activity, that wants no rest. 

His bow for action ready bent. 
And arrows with a head of stone. 

Can only mean that life is spent, 
And not the old ideas gone. 

Thou, stranger, that shall come this way, 
No fraud upon the dead commit, — 

Observe the swelling turf, and say. 
They do not lie, but here they sit. 

Here still a lofty rock remains. 

On which the curious eye may trace 

(Now wasted half by wearing rains) 
The fancies of a ruder race. 

Here still an aged elm aspires. 

Beneath whose far projecting shade 

(And which the shepherd still admires) 
The children of the forest played. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 139 

There oft a restless Indian queen 

(Pale Shebah with her braided hair), 
And many a barbarous form is seen 

To chide the man that lingers there. 

By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews, 

In habit for the chase arrayed, 
The hunter still the deer pursues, 

The hunter and the deer — a shade ! 

And long shall timorous Fancy see 

The painted chief, and pointed spear, 
And Reason's self shall bow the knee 

To shadows and delusions here. 



THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE 

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow. 

Hid in this silent, dull retreat. 
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow. 
Unseen thy little branches greet : 
No roving foot shall crush thee here, 
No busy hand provoke a tear. 

By Nature's self in white arrayed. 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye. 
And planted here the guardian shade. 
And sent soft waters murmuring by ; 
Thus quietly thy summer goes, 
Thy days declining to repose. 

Smit with those charms, that must decay, 

I grieve to see your future doom ; 
They died — nor were those flowers more gay, 
The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 



I40 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

From morning suns and evening dews 

At first thy little being came ; 
If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
For when you die you are the same ; 
The space between is but an hour, 
The frail duration of a flower. 

TO A HONEY BEE 

Thou, born to sip the lake or spring, 
Or quaff the waters of the stream. 
Why hither come, on vagrant wing ? 
Does Bacchus tempting seem, — 
Did he for joy this glass prepare ? 
Will I admit you to a share ? 

Did storms harass or foes perplex, 

Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay, — 
Did wars distress, or labors vex, 
Or did you miss your way ? 

A better seat you could not take 
Than on the margin of this lake. 

Welcome ! — I hail you to my glass : 

All welcome here you find ; 
Here let the cloud of trouble pass, 
Here be all care resigned. 

This fluid never fails to please, 
And drown the grief of men or bees. 

What forced you here we cannot know. 

And you will scarcely tell, 
But cheery we would have you go 
And bid a glad farewell : 

On lighter wings we bid you fly, — 
Your dart will now all foes defy. 

Yet take not, oh ! too deep a drink, 
And in this ocean die ; 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 141 

Here bigger bees than you might sink, 
Even bees full six feet high. 

Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said 
To perish in a sea of red. 

Do as you please, your will is mine ; 

Enjoy it without fear, 
And your grave will be this glass of wine. 
Your epitaph — a tear ; 

Go, take your seat in Charon's boat ; 
We '11 tell the hive, you died afloat. 

JOHN TRUMBULL 

[Born at Westbury, Connecticut, April 24, 1750; died at Detroit, Michigan, 

May 10, 1 831] 

CONVERTING A TORY 

From " McFingal. A Modern Epic Poem," 1782 

Meanwhile beside the pole, the guard 
A Bench of Justice had prepared, 
Where sitting round in awful sort 
The grand Committee hold their Court ; 
While all the crew, in silent awe, 
Wait from their lips the lore of law. 
Few moments with deliberation 
They hold the solemn consultation ; 
When soon in judgment all agree, 
And Clerk proclaims the dread decree ; 

" That 'Squire McFingal having grown 
The vilest Tory in the town, 
And now in full examination 
Convicted by his own confession, 
Finding no tokens of repentance. 
This Court proceeds to render sentence : 
That first the Mob a slip-knot single 
Tie round the neck of said McFingal, 



142 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And in due form do tar him next, 
And feather, as the law directs ; 
Then through the town attendant ride him 
In cart with Constable beside him, 
And having held him up to shame. 
Bring to the pole, from whence he came." 

Forthwith the crowd proceed to deck 
With halter'd noose McFingal's neck. 
While he in peril of his soul 
Stood tied half-hanging to the pole ; 
Then lifting high the ponderous jar, 
Pour'd o'er his head the smoaking tar. 
With less profusion once was spread 
Oil on the Jewish monarch's head. 
That down his beard and vestments ran. 
And cover 'd all his outward man. 
As when (So Claudian sings) the Gods 
And earth-born Giants fell at odds, 
The stout Enceladus in malice 
Tore mountains up to throw at Pallas ; 
And while he held them o'er his head, 
The river, from their fountains fed, 
Pour'd down his back its copious tide, 

And wore its channels in his hide : 
So from the high-raised urn the torrents 
Spread down his side their various currents ; 
His flowing wig, as next the brim. 
First met and drank the sable stream ; 
Adown his visage stern and grave 
Roll'd and adhered the viscid wave ; 
With arms depending as he stood, 
Each cup capacious holds the flood ; 
From nose and chin's remotest end 
The tarry icicles descend ; 
Till all o'erspread, with colors gay, 
He glitter'd to the western ray. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 143 

Like sleet-bound trees in wintry skies, 
Or Lapland idol carved in ice. 
And now the feather-bag display'd 
Is waved in triumph o'er his head, 
And clouds him o'er with feathers missive, 
And down, upon the tar, adhesive : 
Not Maia's son, with wings for ears. 
Such plumage round his visage wears, 
Nor Milton's six-wing'd angel gathers 
Such superfluity of feathers. 
Now all complete appears our 'Squire, 
Like Gorgon or Chimaera dire ; 
Nor more could boast on Plato's plan 
To rank among the grace of man. 
Or prove his claim to human nature, 
As a two-legg'd unfeather'd creature. 

Then on the fatal cart, in state 
They raised our grand Duumvirate. 
And as at Rome a like committee, 
Who found an owl within their city, 
With solemn rites and grave processions 
At every shrine perform'd lustrations ; 
And lest infection might take place 
From such grim fowl with feather'd face. 
All Rome attends him through the street 
In triumph to his country seat : 
With like devotion all the choir 
Paraded round our awful 'Squire ; 
In front the martial music comes 
Of horns and fiddles, fifes and drums, 
With jingling sound of carriage bells. 
And treble creak of rusted wheels. 
Behind, the crowd, in lengthen'd row 
With proud procession, closed the show. 
And at fit periods every throat 
Combined in universal shout, 



144 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And hail'd great Liberty in chorus, 
Or brawl'd '^ confusion to the Tories." 
Not louder storm the welkin braves 
From clamors of conflicting waves ; 
Less dire in Libyan wilds the noise 
When rav'ning lions lift their voice ; 
Or triumphs at town-meetings made, 
On passing votes to regulate trade. 

Thus having borne them round the town, 
Last at the pole they set them down ; 
And to the tavern take their way 
To end in mirth the festal day. 

And now the Mob, dispersed and gone, 
Left 'Squire and Constable alone. 
The Constable with rueful face 
Lean'd sad and solemn o'er a brace ; 
And fast beside him, cheek by jowl, 
Stuck 'Squire McFingal 'gainst the pole, 
Glued by the tar t' his rear applied, 
Like barnacle on vessel's side. 
But though his body lack'd physician, 
His spirit was in worse condition. 
' He found his fears of whips and ropes 

By many a drachm outweigh 'd his hopes. 
As men in jail without mainprize 
View everything with other eyes, 
And all goes wrong in Church and State, 
Seen through perspective of the grate : 
So now McFingal's second-sight 
Beheld all things in gloomier light ; 
His visual nerve, well purged with tar, 
Saw all the coming scenes of war. 
As his prophetic soul grew stronger. 
He found he could hold in no longer. 
First from the pole, as fierce he shook, 
His wig from pitchy durance broke, 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 145 

His mouth unglued, his feathers flutter'd, 
His tarr'd skirts crack'd, and thus he utter'd : 

" Ah, Mr. Constable, in vain 
We strive 'gainst wind and tide and rain ! 
Behold my doom ! This feathery omen 
Portends what dismal times are coming. 
Now future scenes, before my eyes, 
And second-sighted forms arise. 
I hear a voice, that calls away, 
And cries ' The Whigs will win the day.' 
My beck'ning Genius gives command, 
And bids me fly the fatal land. 
Where changing name and constitution. 
Rebellion turns to Revolution, 
While Loyalty, oppress'd in tears, 
Stands trembling for its neck and ears. 

" Go summon all our brethren, greeting. 
To muster at our usual meeting ; 
There my prophetic voice shall warn 'em 
Of all things future that concern 'em, 
And scenes disclose on which, my friend, 
Their conduct and their lives depend. 
There I — but first 'tis more of use. 
From this vile pole to set me loose ; 
Then go with cautious steps and steady, 
While I steer home and make all ready." 



146 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



TIMOTHY DWIGHT 

[Born at Northampton, Massachusetts, May 14, 1752; died at New Haven, 
Connecticut, January 11, 181 7] 

COLUMBIA 

Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise. 
The queen of the world, and the child of the skies ! 
Thy genius commands thee ; with rapture behold. 
While ages on ages thy splendors unfold. 

Thy reign is the last, and the noblest of time. 
Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime ; 
Let the crimes of the east ne'er encrimson thy name, 
Be freedom, and science, and virtue thy fame. 

To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire ; 
Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire ; 
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend, 
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend. 
A world is thy realm : for a world be thy laws, 
Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause ; 
On Freedom's broad basis, that empire shall rise. 
Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies. 

Fair Science her gates to thy sons shall unbar. 
And the east see thy morn hide the beams of her star. 
New bards, and new sages, unrivalled shall soar 
To fame unextinguished, when time is no more ; 
To thee, the last refuge of virtue designed, 
Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind ; 
Here, grateful to heaven, with transport shall bring 
Their incense, more fragrant than odors of spring. 

Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend. 
And genius and beauty in harmony blend ; 
The graces of form shall awake pure desire. 
And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire ; 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 147 

Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined, 
And virtue's bright image, instamped on the mind, 
With peace and soft rapture shall teach life to glow, 
And light up a smile in the aspect of woe. 

Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display, 
The nations admire, and the ocean obey ; 
Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold, 
And the east and the south yield their spices and gold. 
As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow. 
And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow : 
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled. 
Hush the tumult of war, and give peace to the world. 

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread, 
From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed — 
The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired ; 
The winds ceased to murmur ; the thunders expired ; 
Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along. 
And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung : 
" Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise. 
The queen of the world, and the child of the skies." 



JOEL BARLOW 

[Born at Reading, Connecticut, i 754 ; died near Cracow, Poland, 
December 24, 181 2] 

THE HASTY PUDDING 

CANTO I 

Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise. 
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies ; 
Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurled. 
Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world, 
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, 
A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse, 
But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire 
The purest frenzy of poetic fire. 



148 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd, 
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field, 
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing 
Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring ; 
Or on some distant fair your notes employ, 
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy. 
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, 
My morning incense, and my evening meal, 
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl, 
Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul. 
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine. 
Its substance mingle, married in with thine. 
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat. 
And save the pains of blowing while I eat. 

Oh ! could the smooth, the emblematic song 
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue. 
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime. 
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme, 
No more thy awkward unpoetic name 
Should shun the Muse, or prejudice thy fame ; 
But rising grateful to the accustom'd ear. 
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere ! 

Assist me first with pious toil to trace 
Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race ; 
Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore, 
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore) 
First gave thee to the world ; her works of fame 
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name. 
Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days. 
First learn 'd with stones to crack the well dried maize. 
Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower, 
In boiling water stir the yellow flour : 
The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste, 
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste, 
Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim, 
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim ; 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 149 

The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks, 

And the whole mass its true consistence takes. 

Could but her sacred name, unknown so long, 
Rise, like her labors, to the son of song. 
To her, to them, I 'd consecrate my lays. 
And blow her pudding with the breath of praise. 
If 't was Oella whom I sang before 
I here ascribe her one great virtue more. 
Not through the rich Peruvian realms alone 
The fame of Sol's sweet daughter should be known, 
But o'er the world's wide clime should live secure, 
Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure. 

Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy 
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy ! 
Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam. 
Each clime my country, and each house my home, 
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end, 
I greet my long lost, unforgotten friend. 

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town. 
How long in vain I wandered up and down. 
Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard, 
Cold from his cave usurps the morning board, 
London is lost in smoke and steep'd in tea ; 
No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee ; 
The uncouth word, a libel on the town. 
Would call a proclamation from the crown. 
From climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays, 
Chill'd in their fogs, exclude the generous maize : 
A grain, whose rich, luxuriant growth requires 
Short gentle showers, and bright ethereal fires. 

But here, though distant from our native shore. 
With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more. 
The same ! I know thee by that yellow face. 
That strong complexion of true Indian race. 
Which time can never change, nor soil impair. 
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air ; 



ISO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

For endless years, through every mild domain, 
Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign. 

But man, more fickle, the bold license claims, 
In different realms to give thee different names. 
Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant 
Polenta call, the French of course Polcnic. 
E'en in thy native regions, how I blush 
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush ! 
On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spawn 
Insult and eat thee by the name Suppaivn. 
All spurious appellations, void of truth ; 
I 've better known thee from my earliest youth, 
Thy name is Hasty Pudding ! thus my sire 
Was wont to greet thee fuming from his fire ; 
And while he argued in thy just defence 
With logic clear, he thus explain'd the sense : — 
" In Jiaste the boiling cauldron o'er the blaze. 
Receives and cooks the ready powder'd maize ; 
In haste \ is served, and then in equal Jiaste, 
With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast. 
No carving to be done, no knife to grate 
The tender ear, and wound the stony plate ; 
But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip, 
And taught with art the yielding mass to dip, 
By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored, 
Performs the hasty honors of the board." 
Such is thy name, significant and clear, 
A name, a sound to every Yankee dear. 
But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste 
Preserve my pure hereditary taste. 

There are who strive to stamp with disrepute 
The luscious food, because it feeds the brute, 
In tropes of high-strain'd wit ; while gaudy prigs 
Compare thy nursling, man, to pamper'd pigs ; 
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest, 
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 151 

What though the generous cow gives me to quaff 

The milk nutritious : am I then a calf ? 

Or can the genius of the noisy swine, 

Though nursed on pudding, claim a kin to mine ? 

Sure the sweet song, I fashion to thy praise. 

Runs more melodious than the notes they raise. 

My song resounding in its grateful glee. 
No merit claims : I praise myself in thee. 
My father loved thee through his length of days ! 
For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize ; 
From thee what health, what vigor he possess'd, 
Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest ; 
Thy constellation ruled my natal morn, 
And all my bones were made of Indian corn. 
Delicious grain ! whatever form it take, 
To roast or boil, to smother or to bake. 
In every dish 't is welcome still to me, 
But most, my Hasty Pudding; most in thee. 

Let the green succotash with thee contend, 
Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend, 
Let butter drench them in its yellow tide. 
And a long slice of bacon grace their side ; 
Not all the plate, how famed soe'er it be, 
Can please my palate like a bowl of thee. 
Some talk of Hoe-Cakc, fair Virginia's pride, 
"^XQ^a. Johnny -Cake this mouth has often tried ; 
Both please me well, their virtues much the same, 
Alike their fabric, as allied their fame, 
Except in dear New England, where the last 
Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste, 
To give it sweetness and improve the taste. 
But place them all before me, smoking hot, 
The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot, 
The pudding of the bag, whose quivering breast. 
With suet lined, leads on the Yankee feast. 
The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides 



152 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

A belly soft the pulpy apple hides ; 
The yellow bread whose face like amber glows, 
And all of Indian that the bake-pan knows, — 
You tempt me not — my fav'rite greets my eyes, 
To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies. 



ST. GEORGE TUCKER 

[Born at Bermuda, June 29, 1752 ; died in Nelson County, Virginia, 
November, 1827] 

DAYS OF MY YOUTH 

Days of my youth, 

Ye have glided away ; 
Hairs of my youth, 

Ye are frosted and gray ; 
Eyes of my youth. 

Your keen sight is no more ; 
Cheeks of my youth. 

Ye are furrowed all o'er ; 
Strength of my youth, 

All your vigor is gone ; 
Thoughts of my youth, 

Your gay visions are flown. 

Days of my youth, 

I wish not your recall ; 
Hairs of my youth, 

I 'm content ye should fall ; 
Eyes of my youth, 

You much evil have seen ; 
Cheeks of my youth, 

Bathed in tears have you been ; 
Thoughts of my youth. 

You have led me a?tray ; 
Strength of my youth. 

Why lament your decay } 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1 53 

Days of my age, 

Ye will shortly be past ; 
Pains of my age, 

Yet awhile ye can last ; 
Joys of my age, 

In true wisdom delight ; 
Eyes of my age. 

Be religion your light ; 
Thoughts of my age, 

Dread ye not the cold sod ; 
Hopes of my age, 

Be ye fixed on your God. 



OCCASIONAL POEMS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 

PERIOD 

THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS 

This ballad was occasioned by a real incident. Certain machines, in the 
form of kegs, charged with gunpowder, were sent down the river to annoy 
the British shipping then at Philadelphia. The danger of these machines being 
discovered, the British manned the wharfs and shipping, and discharged their 
small arms and cannons at everything they saw floating in the river during the 
ebb-tide. — A ut/ior's Note. 

Gallants attend and hear a friend 

Trill forth harmonious ditty. 
Strange things I '11 tell which late befell 

In Philadelphia city. 

'T was early day, as poets say. 

Just when the sun was rising. 
A soldier stood on a log of wood, 

And saw a thing surprising. 

As in amaze he stood to gaze. 

The truth can't be denied, sir, 
He spied a score of kegs or more 

Come floating down the tide, sir. 



154 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

A sailor too in jerkin blue, 

This strange appearance viewing, 

First damned his eyes, in great surprise. 
Then said, " Some mischief 's brewing. 

" These kegs, I 'm told, the rebels hold, 
Packed up like pickled herring ; 

And they 're come down to attack the town, 
In this new way of ferrying." 

The soldier flew, the sailor too. 
And scared almost to death, sir. 

Wore out their shoes, to spread the news, 
And ran till out of breath, sir. 

Now up and down throughout the town. 
Most frantic scenes were acted ; 

And some ran here, and others there, 
Like men almost distracted. 

Some fire cried, which some denied, 
But said the earth had quaked ; 

And girls and boys, with hideous noise. 
Ran through the streets half naked. 

Sir William he, snug as a flea, 

Lay all this time a-snoring. 
Nor dreamed of harm as he lay warm, 

In bed with Mrs. Loring. 

Now in a fright, he starts upright, 

Awaked by such a clatter ; 
He rubs both eyes, and boldly cries, 

'" For God's sake, what 's the matter ? " 

At his bedside he then espied, 
Sir Erskine at command, sir, 

Upon one foot he had one boot, 
And th' other in his hand, sir. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 155 

''Arise, arise," Sir Erskine cries, 

'" The rebels — more 's the pity, 
Without a boat are all afloat, 

And ranged before the city. 

" The motley crew, in vessels new. 

With Satan for their guide, sir, 
Packed up in bags, or wooden kegs. 

Come driving down the tide, sir. 

" Therefore prepare for bloody war, 

These kegs must all be routed. 
Or surely we despised shall be. 

And British courage doubted." 

The royal band now ready stand 

All ranged in dread array, sir, 
With stomach stout to see it out. 

And make a bloody day, sir. 

The cannons roar from shore to shore, 

The small arms make a rattle ; 
Since wars began I 'm sure no man 

E'er saw so strange a battle. 

The rebel dales, the rebel vales. 

With rebel trees surrounded. 
The distant woods, the hills and floods, 

With rebel echoes sounded. 

The fish below swam to and fro. 

Attacked from every quarter ; 
Why sure, thought they, the devil 's to pay, 

'Mongst folks above the water. 

The kegs, 't is said, though strongly made, 

Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 
Could not oppose their powerful foes. 

The conquering British troops, sir. 



156 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

From morn to night these men of might 

Displayed amazing courage ; 
And when the sun was fairly down, 

Retired to sup their porridge. 

A hundred men with each a pen, 

Or more upon my word, sir, 
It is most true would be too few, 

Their valor to record, sir. 

Such feats did they perform that day, 

Against these wicked kegs, sir. 
That years to come, if they get home. 

They '11 make their boasts and brags, sir. 

Francis Hopkinson 



THE BALLAD OF NATHAN HALE 

The breezes went steadily through the tall pines, 

A-saying, " Oh ! hu-ush ! " a-saying " Oh ! hu-ush ! " 

As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, 

For Hale in the bush ; for Hale in the bush. 

" Keep still ! " said the thrush as she nestled her young, 
In a nest by the road ; in a nest by the road. 

'" For the tyrants are near, and with them appear 
What bodes us no good ; what bodes us no good." 

The brave captain heard it, and thought of his home 
In a cot by the brook ; in a cot by the brook. 

With mother and sister and memories dear. 
He so gayly forsook ; he so gayly forsook. 

Cooling shades of the night were coming apace, 
The tattoo had beat ; the tattoo had beat. 

The noble one sprang from his dark lurking-place, 
To make his retreat ; to make his retreat. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 157 

He warily trod on the dry rustling leaves, 

As he passed through the wood ; as he passed through the wood ; 
And silently gained his rude launch on the shore, 

As she played with the flood ; as she played with the flood. 

The guards of the camp, on that dark, dreary night, 

Had a murderous will ; had a murderous will. 
They took him and bore him afar from the shore, 

To a hut on the hill ; to a hut on the hill. 

No mother was there, nor a friend who could cheer. 
In that little stone cell ; in that little stone cell. 

But he trusted in love, from his Father above. 

In his heart all was well ; in his heart all was well. 

An ominous owl, with his solemn bass voice, 

Sat moaning hard by ; sat moaning hard by : 
" The tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice. 

For he must soon die ; for he must soon die." 

The brave fellow told them, no thing he restrained, — 

The cruel general ! the cruel general ! — 
His errand from camp, of the ends to be gained, 

And said that was all ; and said that was all. 

They took him and bound him and bore him away, 

Down the hill's grassy side ; down the hill's grassy side. 

'T was there the base hirelings, in royal array. 
His cause did deride ; his cause did deride. 

Five minutes were given, short moments, no more. 

For him to repent ; for him to repent. 
He prayed for his mother, he asked not another, 

To Heaven he went ; to Heaven he went. 

The faith of a martyr the tragedy showed, 

As he trode the last stage ; as he trode the last stage. 



158 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's blood, 
As his words do presage ; as his words do presage. 

" Thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe, 
Go frighten the slave ; go frighten the slave ; 

Tell tyrants, to you their allegiance they owe. 
No fears for the brave ; no fears for the brave." 

Anonymous 

BATTLE OF TRENTON 

On Christmas-day in seventy-six, 

Our ragged troops, with bayonets fixed, 

For Trenton marched away. 
The Delaware see ! the boats below ! 
The light obscured by hail and snow ! 

But no signs of dismay. 

Our object was the Hessian band. 
That dared invade fair freedom's land, 

And quarter in that place. 
Great Washington he led us on. 
Whose streaming flag, in storm or sun, 

Had never known disgrace. 

In silent march we passed the night. 
Each soldier panting for the fight. 

Though quite benumbed with frost. 
Greene on the left at six began. 
The right was led by Sullivan, 

Who ne'er a moment lost. 

Their pickets stormed, the alarm was spread. 
That rebels risen from the dead 

Were marching into town. 
Some scampered here, some scampered there, 
And some for action did prepare ; 

But soon their arms laid down. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 159 

Twelve hundred servile miscreants, 
With all their colors, guns, and tents, 

Were trophies of the day. 
The frolic o'er, the bright canteen, 
In centre, front, and rear was seen 

Driving fatigue away. 

Now, brothers of the patriot bands. 
Let 's sing deliverance from the hands 

Of arbitrary sway. 
And as our life is but a span, 
Let 's touch the tankard while we can. 

In memory of that day. 

Anonymous 



ROYALL TYLER 

[Born at Boston, Massachusetts, July 18, 1757 ; died at Brattleboro, Vermont, 

August 16, 1826] 

THE CONTRAST, A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS 

The First American Comedy Regularly Produced. Written by a 

Citizen of the United States. Performed in 1787, at the Theatre 

IN John Street, New York, 1790 

FROM THE "ADVERTISEMENT" 

"In justice to the Author it may be proper to observe that this 
Comedy has many claims to the public indulgence, independent 
of its intrinsic merits : It is the first essay of American genius in 
a difficult species of composition ; it was written by one who never 
critically studied the rules of the drama, and indeed, has seen but 
few of the exhibitions of the stage ; it was undertaken and finished 
in the course of three weeks ; and the profits of one night's per- 
formance were appropriated to the benefit of the sufferers by the 
fire at Boston." 



l6o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

PROLOGUE, IN REBUKE OF THE PREVAILING ANGLOMANIA 

Exult each patriot heart ! — this night is shown 

A piece which we may fairly call our own ; 

Where the proud titles of " My Lord ! Your Grace ! " 

To humble " Mr." and plain "' Sir " give place. 

Our author pictures not from foreign climes 

The fashions, or the follies of the times ; 

But has confined the subject of his work 

To the gay scenes — the circles of New York. 

On native themes his Muse displays her powers ; 

If ours the faults, the virtues too are ours. 

Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam, 

When each refinement can be found at home ? 

Who travels now to ape the rich or great, 

To deck an equipage and roll in state ; 

To court the graces, or to dance with ease, — 

Or by hypocrisy to strive to please .■' 

Our free-born ancestors such arts despised ; 

Genuine sincerity alone they prized ; 

Their minds with honest emulation fired. 

To solid good — not ornament — aspired ; 

Or, if ambition roused a bolder flame, 

Stern virtue throve, where indolence was shame. 

But modern youths, with imitative sense. 
Deem taste in dress the proof of excellence ; 
And spurn the meanness of your homespun arts. 
Since homespun habits would obscure their parts ; 
Whilst all, which aims at splendor and parade, 
Must come from Europe, and be ready made. 
Strange we should thus our native worth disclaim, 
And check the progress of our rising fame. 
Yet one, whilst imitation bears the sway. 
Aspires to nobler heights, and points the way. 
Be roused, my friends ! his bold example view ; 
Let your own bards be proud to copy you ! 
Should rigid critics reprobate our play, 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD l6i 

At least the patriotic heart will say, 

'" Glorious our fall, since in a noble cause ; 

The bold attempt alone demands applause." 

Still may the wisdom of the Comic Muse 

Exalt your merits, or your faults accuse. 

But think not 't is her aim to be severe ; — 

We all are mortals, and as mortals err. 

If candor pleases, we are truly blest ; 

Vice trembles, when compelled to stand confessed. 

Let not light censure on your faults offend, 

Which aims not to expose them, but amend. 

Thus does our author to your candor trust ; 

Conscious the free are generous, as just. 

ACT I, SCENE 1 — CHIT-CHAT OF TWO MANHATTAN BELLES 
Scene. An Aparimeiit at CJiarlotte's 
Charlotte and Letitia discovered 

Letitia. And so, Charlotte, you really think the pocket-hoop 
unbecoming. 

Charlotte. No, I don't say so. It may be very becoming to 
saunter round the house of a rainy day ; to visit my grandmamma, 
or to go to Quakers' meeting ; but to swim in a minuet with 
the eyes of fifty well-dressed beaux upon me, to trip it in the 
Mall, or walk on the Battery, give me the luxurious, jaunty, flow- 
ing bell-hoop. It would have delighted you to have seen me the 
last evening, my charming girl ; I was dangling o'er the Battery 
with Billy Dimple ; a knot of young fellows were upon the plat- 
form ; as I passed them I faltered with one of the most bewitch- 
ing false steps you ever saw, and then recovered myself with such 
a pretty confusion, flirting my hoop to discover a jet-black shoe 
and brilliant buckle. Gad ! how my little heart thrilled to hear 
the confused raptures of — " Demme, Jack, what a delicate foot ! " 
" Ha ! General, what a well turned — " 

Let. Fie ! fie ! Charlotte (Stopping her moictJi) I protest you 
are quite a libertine. 



1 62 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Charl. Why, my dear little prude, are we not all such liber- 
tines ? Do you think that when I sat tortured two hours under 
the hands of my friseur, and an hour more at my toilet, that I 
had any thought of my aunt Susan, or my cousin Betsey ? though 
they are both allowed to be critical judges of dress. 

Let. Why, whom should we dress to please, but those who 
are judges of its merit ? 

CnARL. Why a creature who does not know Bujfon from Souflce 
— Man ! — my Letitia — Man ! for whom we dress, walk, dance, talk, 
lisp, languish, and smile. Does not the grave Spectator assure us, 
that even our much bepraised diffidence, modesty, and blushes, are 
all directed to make ourselves good wives and mothers as fast as we 
can. Why, I '11 undertake with one flirt of this hoop to bring more 
beaux to my feet in one week, than the grave Maria, and her senti- 
mental circle, can do, by sighing sentiment till their hairs are gray. 

Let. Well, I won't argue with you ; you always out-talk me ; 
let us change the subject. I hear that Mr. Dimple and Maria are 
soon to be married, 

Charl. You hear true. I was consulted in the choice of the 
wedding clothes. She is to be married in a delicate white satin, 
and has a monstrous pretty brocaded lutestring for the second day. 
It would have done you good to have seen with what an affected 
indifference the dear sentimentalist turned over a thousand pretty 
things, just as if her heart did not palpitate with her approaching 
happiness, and at last made her choice, and arranged her dress 
with such apathy, as if she did not know that plain white satin, and 
a simple blond lace, would show her clear skin, and dark hair, to 
the greatest advantage. 

Let. But they say her indifference to dress, and even to the 
gentleman himself, is not entirely affected. 

Charl. How .? 

Let. It is whispered that if Maria gives her hand to Mr. Dimple, 
it will be without her heart. 

Charl. Though the giving of the heart is one of the last of 
all laughable considerations in the marriage of a girl of spirit, yet 
I should like to hear what antiquated notions the dear little piece 
of old-fashioned prudery has got in her head. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 163 

Let. Why you know that old Mr. John-Richard-Robert-Jacob- 
Isaac-Abraham-Cornehus Van DumpHng, Billy Dimple's father 
(for he has thought fit to soften his name as well as his manners, 
during his English tour), was the most intimate friend of Maria's 
father. The old folks, about a year before Mr. Van Dumpling's 
death, proposed this match : the young folks were accordingly in- 
troduced, and told they must love one another. Billy was then a 
good-natured, decent, dressing young fellow, with a little dash of 
the coxcomb, such as our young fellows of fortune usually have. 
At this time, I really believe, she thought she loved him ; and had 
they then been married, I doubt not, they might have jogged on, to 
the end of the chapter, a good kind of sing-song lackadaisical life, 
as other honest married folks do. 

Charl. Why did they not then marry ? 

Let. Upon the death of his father, Billy went to England to 
see the world and rub off a little of the patroon rust. During his 
absence, Maria, like a good girl, to keep herself constant to her own 
true love, avoided company, and betook herself, for her amuse- 
ment, to her books, and her dear Billy's letters. But, alas ! how 
many ways has the mischievous demon of inconstancy of stealing 
into a woman's heart ! Her love was destroyed by the very means 
she took to support it. 

Charl. How ? — Oh ! I have it — some likely young beau 
found the way to her study. 

Let. Be patient, Charlotte, your head so runs upon beaux. — 
Why she read " Sir Charles Grandison," " Clarissa Harlowe," 
" Shenstone," and the "Sentimental Journey"; and between 
whiles, as I said, Billy's letters. But as her taste improved, her 
love declined. The contrast was so striking betwixt the good sense 
of her books, and the flimsiness of her love-letters, that she dis- 
covered that she had unthinkingly engaged her hand without her 
heart ; and then the whole transaction managed by the old folks 
now appeared so unsentimental, and looked so like bargaining for 
a bale of goods, that she found she ought to have rejected, accord- 
ing to every rule of romance, even the man of her choice, if im- 
posed upon her in that manner — Clary Harlowe would have scorned 
such a match. 



1 64 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Charl. Well, how was it on Mr. Dimple's return ? Did he 
meet a more favorable reception than his letters ? 

Let. Much the same. She spoke of him with respect abroad, 
and with contempt in her closet. She watched his conduct and 
conversation, and found that he had by travelling acquired the 
wickedness of Lovelace without his wit, and the politeness of 
Sir Charles Grandison without his generosity. The ruddy youth 
who washed his face at the cistern every morning, and swore and 
looked eternal love and constancy, was now metamorphosed into a 
flippant, pallid, polite beau, who devotes the morning to his toilet, 
reads a few pages of "Chesterfield's Letters," and then minces 
out, to put the infamous principles in practice upon every woman 
he meets. 

Charl. But if she is so apt at conjuring up these sentimental 
bugbears, why does she not discard him at once ? 

Let. Why, she thinks her word too sacred to be trifled with. 
Besides, her father, who has a great respect for the memory of 
his deceased friend, is ever telling her how he shall renew his 
years in their union, and repeating the dying injunctions of old 
Van Dumpling. 

Charl. A mighty pretty story ! And so you would make me 
believe that the sensible Maria would give up Dumpling manor, 
and the all-accomplished Dimple as a husband, for the absurd, 
ridiculous reason, forsooth, because she despises and abhors him. 
Just as if a lady could not be privileged to spend a man's fortune, 
ride in his carriage, be called after his name, and call him her ozuii 
dear-lovee when she wants money, without loving and respecting 
the great he-creature. Oh ! my dear girl, you are a monstrous prude. 

Let. I don't say what I would do ; I only intimate how I sup- 
pose she wishes to act. 

Charl. No, no, no ! a fig for sentiment. If she breaks, or 
wishes to break, with Mr. Dimple, depend upon it, she has some 
other man in her eye. A woman rarely discards one lover until 
she is sure of another. — Letitia little thinks what a clew I have to 
Dimple's conduct. The generous man submits to render himself 
disgusting to Maria, in order that she may leave him at liberty to 
address me. I must change the subject. {Aside, and rings a bell.) 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 165 

Enter Servant 

Frank, order the horses to. — Talking of marriage — did you 
hear that Sally Bloomsbury is going to be married next week to 
Mr. Indigo, the rich Carolinian ? 

Let. Sally Bloomsbury married ! — Why she is not yet in her 
teens. 

Charl. I do not know how that is, but you may depend upon 
it, 't is a done ai¥air. I have it from the best authority. There is 
my Aunt Wyerley's Hannah (You know Hannah — though a black, 
she is a wench that was never caught in a lie in her life) ; now 
Hannah has a brother who courts Sarah, Mrs. Catgut the milliner's 
girl, and she told Hannah's brother, and Hannah, who, as I said 
before, is a girl of undoubted veracity, told it directly to me, that 
Mrs. Catgut was making a new cap for Miss Bloomsbury, which, 
as it was very dressy, it is very probable is designed for a wed- 
ding cap ; now, as she is to be married, who can it be to, but to 
Mr. Indigo } Why, there is no other gentleman that visits at her 
papa's. 

Let. Say not a word more, Charlotte. Your intelligence is so 
direct and well grounded, it is almost a pity that it is not a piece 
of scandal. 

Charl. Oh ! I am the pink of prudence. Though I cannot 
charge myself with ever having discredited a tea-party by my silence, 
yet I take care never to report anything of my acquaintance, es- 
pecially if it is to their credit — discredit I mean — until I have 
searched to the bottom of it. It is true there is infinite pleasure in 
this charitable pursuit. Oh ! how delicious to go and condole with 
the friends of some backsliding sister, or to retire with some old 
dowager or maiden aunt of the family, who love scandal so well, 
that they cannot forbear gratifying their appetite at the expense of 
the reputation of their nearest relations. And then to return full- 
fraught with a rich collection of circumstances, to retail to the next 
circle of our acquaintance under the strongest injunctions of secrecy, 
— ha, ha, ha ! — interlarding the melancholy tale with so many doleful 
shakes of the head, and more doleful "Ah ! who would have thought 
it ! so amiable, so prudent a young lady, as we all thought her, what 



1 66 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

a monstrous pity ! well, I have nothing to charge myself with ; I 
acted the part of a friend, I warned her of the principles of that 
rake, I told her what would be the consequence ; I told her so, I 
told her so." — Ha, ha, ha ! 

Let. Ha, ha, ha ! Well, but Charlotte, you don't tell me what 
you think of Miss Bloomsbury's match. 

Charl. Think ! why I think it is probable she cried for a play- 
thing, and they have given her a husband. Well, well, well, the 
puling chit shall not be deprived of her plaything : 't is only ex- 
changing London dolls for American babies — apropos, of babies, 
have you heard what Mrs. Affable's high flying notions of delicacy 
have come to .'' 

Let, Who, she that was Miss Lovely } 

Charl. The same ; she married Bob Affable of Schenectady. 
Don't you remember ? 

Enter Servant 

Servant. Madam, the carriage is ready. 

Let. Shall we go to the stores first, or visiting } 

Charl. I should think it rather too early to visit ; especially 
Mrs. Prim : you know she is so particular. 

Let. But what of Mrs. Affable .? 

Charl. Oh, I '11 tell you as we go ; come, come, let us hasten. 
I hear Mrs. Catgut has some of the prettiest caps arrived, you ever 
saw. I shall die if I have not the first sight of them. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 167 

CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN 

[Born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 17, 1771 ; died 
February 22, 1810] 

WIELAND'S DEFENCE 

(WiELAND ; OR THE TRANSFORMATION, 1 798) 

Theodore Wieland, the prisoner at the bar, was now called upon 
for his defence. He looked around him for some time in silence, 
and with a mild countenance. At length he spoke : — 

"It is strange : I am known to my judges and my auditors. 
Who is there present a stranger to the character of Wieland ? 
who knows him not as a husband, — as a father, — as a friend ? 
yet here am I arraigned as a criminal. I am charged with dia- 
bolical malice ; I am accused of the murder of my wife and my 
children ! 

"It is true, they were slain by me ; they all perished by my 
hand. The task of vindication is ignoble. What is it that I am 
called to vindicate .'' and before whom .-' 

" You know that they are dead, and that they were killed by me. 
What more would you have ? Would you extort from me a state- 
ment of my motives ? Have you failed to discover them already .? 
You charge me with malice ; but your eyes are not shut ; your 
reason is still vigorous ; your memory has not forsaken you. You 
know whom it is that you thus charge. The habits of his life are 
known to you ; his treatment of his wife and his offspring is known 
to you ; the soundness of his integrity, and the unchangeableness 
of his principles, are familiar to your apprehension ; yet you per- 
sist in this charge ! You lead me hither manacled as a felon ; you 
deem me worthy of a vile and tormenting death ! 

" Who are they whom I have devoted to death .'' My wife — the 
little ones, that drew their being from me — that creature who, as 
she surpassed them in excellence, claimed a larger affection than 
those whom natural affinities bound to my heart. Think ye that 
malice could have urged me to do this deed ? Hide your audacious 
fronts from the scrutiny of heaven. Take refuge in some cavern 



1 68 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

unvisited by human eyes. Ye may deplore your wickedness or 
folly, but ye cannot expiate it. 

" Think not that I speak for your sakes. Hug to your hearts 
this detestable infatuation. Deem me still a murderer, and drag 
me to untimely death. I make not an effort to dispel your illusion ; 
I utter not a word to cure you of your sanguinary folly ; but there 
are probably some in this assembly who have come from far ; for 
their sakes, whose distance has disabled them from knowing me, 
I will tell what I have done and why. 

"It is needless to say that God is the object of my supreme 
passion. I have cherished in his presence a single and upright 
heart. I have thirsted for the knowledge of his will. I have burnt 
with ardor to approve my faith and my obedience. 

" My days have been spent in searching for the revelation of that 
will ; but my days have been mournful, because my search failed. 
I solicited direction ; I turned on every side where glimmerings 
of light could be discovered. I have not been wholly uninformed ; 
but my knowledge has always stopped short of certainty. Dissat- 
isfaction has insinuated itself into all of my thoughts. My pur- 
poses have been pure, my wishes indefatigable ; but not till lately 
were those purposes thoroughly accomplished and these wishes 
fully gratified. 

" I thank thee, my Father, for thy bounty ; that thou didst not 
ask a less sacrifice than this ; that thou placedst me in a condition 
to testify my submission to thy will ! What have I withheld which 
it was thy pleasure to exact ? Now may I, with dauntless eye, claim 
my reward, since I have given thee the treasure of my soul. 

'" I was at my own house ; it was late in the evening ; my sister 
had gone to the city, but proposed to return. It was in expectation 
of her return that my wife and I delayed going to bed beyond the 
usual hour ; the rest of the family, however, were retired. 

'" My mind was contemplative and calm, — not wholly devoid of 
apprehension on account of my sister's safety. Recent events, not 
easily explained, had suggested the existence of some danger ; but 
this danger was without a distinct form in our imagination, and 
scarcely ruffled our tranquillity. 

" Time passed, and my sister did not arrive. Her house is at 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 169 

some distance from mine, and, though her arrangements had been 
made with a view to residing with us, it was possible that, through 
forgetfulness, or the occurrence of unforeseen emergencies, she 
had returned to her own dwelhng. 

" Hence it was conceived proper that I should ascertain the 
truth by going thither. I went. On my way my mind was full of 
those ideas which related to my intellectual condition. In the tor- 
rent of fervid conceptions, I lost sight of my purpose. Sometimes, 
I stood still ; sometimes I wandered from my path, and experienced 
some difficulty, on recovering from my fit of musing, to regain it. 

" The series of my thoughts is easily traced. At first every vein 
beat with raptures known only to the man whose parental and con- 
jugal love is without limits, and the cup of whose desires, immense 
as it is, overflows with gratification. I know not why emotions 
that were perpetual visitants should now have recurred with un- 
usual energy. The transition was not new from sensations of joy 
to a consciousness of gratitude. The Author of my being was em- 
bellished. The service to which a benefactor like this was entitled 
could not be circumscribed. My social sentiments were indebted 
to their alliance with devotion for all their value. All passions are 
base, all joys feeble, all energies malignant, which are not drawn 
from this source. 

" For a time my contemplations soared above earth and its in- 
habitants. I stretched forth my hands ; I lifted my eyes, and ex- 
claimed, ' Oh that I might be admitted to thy presence ! that mine 
were the supreme delight of knowing thy will, and of performing 
it ! — the blissful privilege of direct communication with thee, and 
of listening to the audible enunciation of thy pleasure ! 

What task would I not undertake, what privation would I not 
cheerfully endure, to testify my love of thee ? Alas ! thou hidest 
thyself from my view ; glimpses only of thy excellence and beauty 
are afforded me. Would that a momentary emanation from thy 
glory would visit me ! that some unambiguous token of thy presence 
would salute my senses ! ' 

"In this mood I entered the house of my sister. It was vacant. 
Scarcely had I regained recollection of the purpose that brought 
me hither. Thoughts of a different tendency had such absolute 



•I/O READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

possession of my mind, that the relations of time and space were 
almost obliterated from my understanding. These wanderings, 
however, were restrained, and I ascended to her chamber. 

" I had no light, and might have known by external observation 
that the house was without any inhabitant. With this, however, I 
was not satisfied. I entered the room, and, the object of my search 
not appearing, I prepared to return. 

"The darkness required some caution in descending the stair. 
I stretched my hand to seize the balustrade by which I might 
regulate my steps. How shall I describe the lustre which at that 
moment burst upon my vision } 

" I was dazzled. My organs were bereaved of their activity. 
My eyelids were half closed, and my hands withdrawn from the 
balustrade. A nameless fear chilled my veins, and I stood motion- 
less. This irradiation did not retire or lessen. It seemed as if 
some powerful effulgence covered me like a mantle. 

" I opened my eyes and found all about me luminous and glow- 
ing. It was the element of heaven that flowed around. Nothing 
but a fiery stream was at first visible ; but, anon, a shrill voice 
from behind called upon me to attend. 

" I turned. It is forbidden to describe what I saw ; words, in- 
deed, would be wanting to the task. The lineaments of that being 
whose veil was now lifted and whose visage beamed upon my 
sight, no hues of pencil or of language can portray. 

"As it spoke, the accents thrilled to my heart : — " Thy prayers 
are heard. In proof of thy faith, render me thy wife. This is the 
victim I choose. Call her hither and here let her fall.' The sound, 
and visage, and light vanished at once. 

" What demand was this ? The blood of Catherine was to be 
shed ! My wife was to perish by my hand ! I sought opportunity 
to attest my virtue. Little did I expect that a proof like this would 
have been demanded. 

" " My wife ! ' I exclaimed ; ' O God ! substitute some other 
victim. Make me not the butcher of my wife. My own blood is 
cheap. This will I pour out before thee with a willing heart ; but 
spare, I beseech thee, this precious life, or commission some other 
than her husband to perform the bloody deed.' 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1 71 

'" In vain. The conditions were prescribed ; the decree had 
gone forth, and nothing remained but to execute it. I rushed out 
of the house and across the intermediate fields, and stopped not 
till I entered my own parlor. 

" My wife had remained here during my absence, in anxious 
expectation of my return with some tidings of her sister. I had 
none to communicate. For a time I was breathless with my speed. 
This, and the tremors that shook my frame, and the wildness of 
my looks, alarmed her. She immediately suspected some disaster 
to have happened to her friend, and her own speech was as much 
overpowered by emotion as mine. 

" She was silent, but her looks manifested her impatience to 
hear what I had to communicate. I spoke, but with so much pre- 
cipitation as scarcely to be understood ; catching her, at the same 
time, by the arm, and forcibly pulling her from her seat. 

" " Come along with me ; fly ; waste not a moment ; time will 
be lost, and the deed will be omitted. Tarry not ; question not ; 
but fly with me ! ' 

"' This deportment added fresh to her alarms. Her eyes pursued 
mine, and she said, ' What is the matter ? For God's sake, what 
is the matter ? Where would you have me go ? ' 

" My eyes were fixed upon her countenance while she spoke. 
I thought upon her virtues, I viewed her as the mother of my 
babes ; as my wife. I recalled the purpose for which I thus urged 
her attendance. My heart faltered, and I saw that I must rouse 
to this work all my faculties. The danger of the least delay was 
imminent. 

" I looked away from her, and again exerting my force, drew her 
towards the door : — ' You must go with me ; indeed you must.' 

"In her fright she half resisted my efforts, and again exclaimed, 
' Good heaven ! what is it you mean .-' Where go ? What has hap- 
pened ? Have you found Clara ? ' 

" ' Follow me, and you will see,' I answered, still urging her 
reluctant steps forward. 

" ' What frenzy has seized you .-• Something must needs have 
happened. Is she sick ? Have you found her ? ' 

" ' Come and see. Follow me, and know for yourself.' 



172 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" Still she expostulated, and besought me to explain this mys- 
terious behavior. I could not trust myself to answer her, to look 
at her ; but grasping her arm, I drew her after me. She hesitated, 
rather through confusion of mind than from unwillingness to ac- 
company me. This confusion gradually abated, and she moved 
forward, but with irresolute footsteps and continual exclamations 
of wonder and terror. Her interrogations of ' what was the matter ? ' 
and ' whither was I going ? ' were ceaseless and vehement. 

" It was the scope of my efforts not to think ; to keep up a con- 
flict and uproar in my mind in which all order and distinctness 
should be lost ; to escape from the sensations produced by her 
voice. I was therefore silent. I strove to abridge this interval by 
my haste, and to waste all my attentions in furious gesticulations. 

" In this state of mind we reached my sister's door. She looked 
at the windows and saw that all was desolate. " Why come we 
here .'' There is nobody here. I will not go in.' 

" Still I was dumb ; but, opening the door, I drew her into the 
entry. This was the allotted scene ; here she was to fall. I let go 
her hand, and pressing my palms against my forehead, made one 
mighty effort to work up my, soul to the deed. 

"In vain, it would not be ; my courage was appalled, my arms 
nerveless. I muttered prayers that my strength might be aided 
from above. They availed nothing. 

"Horror diffused itself over me. This conviction of my coward- 
ice, my rebellion, fastened upon me, and I stood rigid and cold as 
marble. From this state I was somewhat relieved by my wife's 
voice, who renewed her supplications to be told why we came hither 
and what was the fate of my sister. 

"What could I answer.? My words were broken and inarticulate. 
Her fears naturally acquired force from the observation of these 
symptoms ; but these fears were misplaced. The only inference 
she deduced from my conduct was that some terrible mishap had 
befallen Clara. 

" She wrung her hands, and exclaimed, in an agony, " Oh, tell 
me, where is she.? What has become of her,? Is she sick.? Dead.? 
Is she in her chamber .? Oh, let me go thither and know the 
worst ! ' 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 173 

" This proposal set my thoughts once more in motion. Perhaps 
what my rebellious heart refused to perform here, I might obtain 
strength enough to execute elsewhere. 

" ' Come, then,' said I ; 'let us go.' 

'" ' I will, but not in the dark. We must first procure a light.' 

" ' Fly, then, and procure it ; but, I charge you, linger not. I 
will await for your return.' 

" While she was gone I strode along the entry. The fellness of 
a gloomy hurricane but faintly resembled the discord that reigned 
in my mind. To omit this sacrifice must not be ; yet my sinews 
had refused to perform it. No alternative was offered. To rebel 
against the mandate was impossible ; but obedience would render 
me the executioner of my wife. My will was strong but my limbs 
refused their office. 

" She returned with a light. I led the way to the chamber : she 
looked round her ; she lifted the curtain of the bed ; she saw 
nothing. 

"' At length she fixed inquiring eyes upon me. The light now 
enabled her to discover in my visage what darkness had hitherto 
concealed. Her cares were now transferred from my sister to my- 
self, and she said, in a tremulous voice, ' Wieland, you are not 
well : what ails you ? Can I do nothing for you .'* ' 

"That accents and looks so winning should disarm me of my 
resolution, was to be expected. My thoughts were thrown anew 
into anarchy. I spread my hand before my eyes that I might not 
see her, and answered only by groans. She took my other hand 
between hers, and pressing it to her heart, spoke with that voice 
which had ever swayed my will and wafted away sorrow, 

'" ' My friend ! my soul's friend ! tell me thy cause of grief. Do 
I not merit to partake with thee in thy cares ? Am I not thy wife ? ' 

" This was too much. I broke from her embrace, and retired 
to a corner of the room. In this pause, courage was once more 
infused into me. I resolved to execute my duty. She followed 
me, and renewed her passionate entreaties to know the cause of 
my distress. 

" I raised my head and regarded her with steadfast looks. I 
muttered something about death, and the injunctions of my duty. 



174 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

At these words she shrunk back, and looked at me with a new 
expression of anguish. After a pause, she clasped her hands, and 
exclaimed, — 

"' " Oh, Wieland ! Wieland ! God grant that I am mistaken ! 
but something surely is wrong. I see it ; it is too plain ; thou art 
undone, lost to me and to thyself ! ' At the same time she gazed on 
my features with intensest anxiety, in hope that different symptoms 
would take place. I replied to her with vehemence, — 

" ' Undone ! No ; my duty is known, and I thank my God that 
my cowardice is now vanquished, and I have power to fulfill it. 
Catherine, I pity the weakness of thy nature ; I pity thee, but must 
not spare. Thy life is claimed from my hands ; thou must die ! ' 

" Fear was now added to her grief. ' What mean you ? Why 
talk you of death ? Bethink yourself, Wieland ; bethink yourself, 
and this fit will pass. Oh, why came I hither.? Why did you 
drag me hither .? ' 

" " I brought thee hither to fulfill a divine command. I am 
appointed thy destroyer, and destroy thee I must.' Saying this, 
I seized her wrists. She shrieked aloud, and endeavored to free 
herself from my grasp ; but her efforts were vain. 

" ' Surely, surely, Wieland, thou dost not mean it. Am I not 
thy wife ? and would'st thou kill me } Thou wilt not ; and yet — 
I see — thou art Wieland no longer ! A fury resistless and horri- 
ble possesses thee : — spare me — spare — help — help — ' 

"Till her breath was stopped she shrieked for help, — for 
mercy. When she could speak no longer, her gestures, her looks 
appealed to my compassion. My accursed hand was irresolute and 
tremulous. I meant thy death to be sudden, thy struggles to be 
brief. Alas ! my heart was infirm, my resolves mutable. Thrice 
I slacked my grasp, and life kept its hold, though in the midst 
of pangs. Her eyeballs started from their sockets. Grimness and 
distortion took place of all that used to bewitch me into transport 
and subdue me into reverence, 

" ' I was commissioned to kill thee, but not to torment thee with 
the foresight of thy death ; not to multiply thy fears and prolong 
thy agonies. Haggard, and pale, and lifeless, at length thou 
ceased'st to contend with thy destiny.' 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1/5 

' This was a moment of triumph. Thus had I successfully sub- 
dued the stubbornness of human passions : the victim which had 
been demanded was given ; the deed was done past recall. 

" I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I gazed 
upon it with delight. Such was the elation of my thoughts, that 
I even broke into laughter. I clapped my hands and exclaimed, 
" It is done ! My sacred duty is fulfilled ! To that I have sacrificed, 

my God ! thy last and best gift, my wife ! ' 

" For a while I thus soared against frailty. I imagined I had 
set myself forever beyond the reach of selfishness ; but my im- 
aginations were false. This rapture quickly subsided. I looked 
again at my wife. My joyous ebullitions vanished, and I asked 
myself who it was whom I saw. Methought it could not be 
Catherine. It could not be the woman who had lodged for years 
in my heart ; whom I had watched with delight, and cherished 
with a fondness ever new and perpetually growing ; it could not 
be the same. Where was her bloom .? These deadly and blood- 
suffused orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic tenderness 
of her eyes. The lucid stream that meandered over that bosom, 
the glow of love that was wont to sit upon that cheek, are much 
unlike these livid stains and this hideous deformity. Alas ! these 
were the traces of agony ; the gripe of the assassin had been 
there ! 

" I will not dwell upon my lapse into desperate and outrageous 
sorrow. The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn, 
and I sunk into mere man. I leaped from the floor ; I dashed 
my head against the wall ; I uttered screams of horror ; I panted 
after torment and pain. Eternal fire, and the bickerings of hell, 
compared with what I felt, were music and a bed of roses. 

" I thank my God that this degeneracy was transient, — that he 
deigned once more to raise me aloft. I thought upon what I had 
done as a sacrifice to duty, and xvas calm. My wife was dead ; but 

1 reflected that though this source of human consolation was closed, 
yet others were still open. If the transports of a husband were no 
more, the feelings of a father had still scope for exercise. When 
remembrance of their mother should excite too keen a pang, I 
would look upon them and be comforted. 



176 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" While I resolved these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon my 
heart — I was wrong. These feelings were the growth of selfish- 
ness. Of this I was not aware, and, to dispel the mist that ob- 
scured my perceptions, a new effulgence, and a new mandate 
were necessary. 

" From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray that was shot 
into the room. A voice spake like that which I had before heard : 
— 'Thou hast done well. But all is not done — the sacrifice is 
incomplete — thy children must be offered — they must perish 
with their mother ! — ' " 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 



JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE 

[Born at New York City, August 7, 1795 ; died at New York City, 
September 21, 1820] 

THE FAY'S SENTENCE 
From " The Culprit Fay " 

The monarch sat on his judgment-seat, 

On his brow the crown imperial shone, 
The prisoner Fay was at his feet, 

And his peers were ranged around the throne. 
He waved his sceptre in the air ; 

He looked around and calmly spoke ; 
His brow was grave and his eye severe, 

But his voice in a softened accent broke : 

" Fairy ! Fairy ! list and mark. 

Thou hast broken thine elfin chain. 
Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark. 

And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain — 
Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity 
In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye, 
Thou hast scorned our dread decree, 
And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high, 
But well I know her sinless mind 
Is pure as the angel forms above. 
Gentle and meek and chaste and kind, 
Such as a spirit well might love ; 
Fairy ! had she spot or taint. 
Bitter had been thy punishment. 
177 



178 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Tied to the hornet's shardy wings ; 

Tossed on the pricks of nettle's stings ; 

Or seven long ages doomed to dwell 

With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell ; 

Or every night to writhe and bleed 

Beneath the tread of the centipede ; 

Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim, 

Your jailor a spider huge and grim, 

Amid the carrion bodies to lie. 

Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly ; 

These it had been your lot to bear, 

Had a stain been found on the earthly fair. 

Now list, and mark our mild decree — 

Fairy, this your doom must be : 

" Thou shalt seek the beach of sand 

Where the water bounds the elfin land, 

Thou shalt watch the oozy brine 

Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine, 

Then dart the glistening arch below. 

And catch a drop from his silver bow. 

And dash around, with roar and rave, 
And vain are the woodland spirits' charms, 

They are the imps that rule the wave. 
Yet trust thee in thy single might, — 
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right. 
Thou shalt win the warlock fight. 

" If the spray-bead gem be won, 

The stain of thy wing is washed away, 

But another errand must be done 
Ere the crime be lost for aye ; 

Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark, 

Thou must re-illumine its spark. 

Mount thy steed and spur him high 

To the heaven's blue canopy ; 

And when thou seest a shooting star, 

Follow it fast, and follow it far — 



I 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 179 

The last faint spark of its burning train 
Shall light the elfin lamp again. 
Thou hast heard our sentence, Fay ; 
Hence ! to the water-side, away ! " 



THE SECOND QUEST 

Up, Fairy ! quit thy chickweed bower, 
The cricket has called the second hour. 
Twice again, and the lark will rise 
To kiss the streaking of the skies — 
Up ! thy charmed armor don, 
Thou 'It need it ere the night be gone. 

He put his acorn helmet on ; 

It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down ; 

The corselet plate that guarded his breast 

Was once the wild bee's golden vest ; 

His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes. 

Was formed of the wings of butterflies ; 

His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen. 

Studs of gold on a ground of green ; 

And the quivering lance which he brandished bright, 

Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight. 

Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed ; 

He bared his blade of the bent- grass blue ; 
He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed. 

And away like a glance of thought he flew, 
To skim the heavens and follow far 
The fiery trail of the rocket-star. 

The moth-fly, as he shot in air. 

Crept under the leaf, and hid her there ; 

The katy-did forgot its lay. 

The prowling gnat fled fast away, 

The fell mosquito checked his drone, 

And folded his wings till the Fay was gone. 



l8o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And the wily beetle dropped his head, 
And fell on the ground as if he were dead ; 
They crouched them close in the darksome shade, 

They quaked all o'er with awe and fear, 
For they had felt the blue-bent blade, 

And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear ; 
Many a time, on a summer's night, 
When the sky was clear and the moon was bright. 
They had been roused from the haunted ground 
By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound ; 
They had heard the tiny bugle-horn. 
They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string, 
When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn, 
And the nettle-shaft through air was borne. 
Feathered with down of the humbird's wing. 
And now they deemed the courier ouphe. 

Some hunter-sprite of the elfin ground ; 
And they watched till they saw him mount the roof 

That canopies the world around ; 
Then glad they left their covert lair. 
And freaked about in the midnight air. 



THE AMERICAN FLAG 

When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robe of night, 
And set the stars of glory there. 

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 

The milky baldric of the skies, 

And striped its pure celestial white 

With streakings of the morning light ; 

Then from his mansion in the sun 

She called her eagle bearer down. 

And gave into his mighty hand 

The symbol of her chosen land. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD l8l 

Majestic monarch of the cloud. 

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
To hear the tempest trumpings loud 
And see the lightning lances driven, 

When strive the warriors of the storm, 
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, 
Child of the sun ! to thee 't is given 

To guard the banner of the free, 
To hover in the sulphur smoke. 
To bid its blendings shine afar, 
Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 

The harbingers of victory ! 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly. 
The sign of hope and triumph high, 
When speaks the signal trumpet tone, 
And the long line comes gleaming on. 
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet. 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet. 
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
To where the sky-born glories burn, 
And, as his springing steps advance. 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, 
And gory sabres rise and fall 
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall. 

Then shall thy meteor glances glow, 
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath 

Each gallant arm that strikes below 
That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! On ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ; 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail. 



1 82 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And frightened waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
And smile to see thy splendors fiy 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home ! 

By angel hands to valor given ; 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK 

[Born at Guilford, Connecticut, July 8, i 790 ; died at Guilford, Connecticut, 
November 19, 1867] 

ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell when thou wert dying, 

From eyes unused to weep. 
And long, where thou art lying. 

Will tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts, whose truth was proven, 

Like thine, are laid in earth, 
There should a wreath be woven 

To tell the world their worth ; 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD i8; 

And I who woke each morrow 

To clasp thy hand in mine, 
Who shared thy joy and sorrow, 

Whose weal and woe were thine ; 

It should be mine to braid it 

Around thy faded brow, 
But I 've in vain essayed it. 

And feel I cannot now. 

While memory bids me weep thee, 
Nor thoughts nor words are free, — 

The grief is fixed too deeply 
That mourns a man like thee. 



MARCO BOZZARIS 

At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent. 

Should tremble at his power : 
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
The trophies of a conqueror ; 

In dreams his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet ring : 
Then pressed that monarch's throne — a king; 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing. 

As Eden's garden bird. 

At midnight, in the forest shades, 
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band. 

True as the steel of their tried blades, 
Heroes in heart and hand. 

There had the Persian's thousands stood. 

There had the glad earth drunk their blood 
On old Platsea's day ; 

And now there breathed that haunted air 



1 84 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The sons of sires who conquered there, 
With arm to strike and soul to dare, 

As quick, as far as they. 
An hour passed on — the Turk awoke ; 

That bright dream was his last ; 
He woke — to hear his sentries shriek, 

" To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek ! " 
He woke — to die midst flame, and smoke, 
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke. 

And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ; 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band : 
" Strike — till the last armed foe expires ; 
Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires ; 

God — and your native land ! " 

They fought — like brave men, long and well ; 

They piled that ground with Moslem slain, 
They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 
His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile when rang their proud hurrah. 

And the red field was won ; 
Then saw in death his eyelids close 
Calmly, as to a night's repose. 

Like flowers at set of sun. 

Come to the bridal-chamber. Death ! 

Come to the mother's, when she feels, 
For the first time, her first-born's breath ; 

Come when the blessed seals 
That close the pestilence are broke, 
And crowded cities wail its stroke ; 
Come in consumption's ghastly form, 
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ; 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 185 

Come when the heart beats high and warm 
With banquet-song and dance, and wine ; 

And thou art terrible — the tear, 

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 

And all we know, or dream, or fear 
Of agony, are thine. 

But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for the free. 
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word ; 
And in its hollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions yet to be. 
Come, when his task of fame is wrought — 
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought — 

Come in her crowning hour — and then 
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light 
To him is welcome as the sight 

Of sky and stars to prisoned men ; 
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand 
Of brother in a foreign land ; 
Thy summons welcome as the cry 
That told the Indian isles were nigh 

To the world-seeking Genoese, 
When the land wind, from woods of palm, 
And orange-groves, and fields of balm, 

Blew o'er the Haytian seas. 

Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 
Rest thee — there is no prouder grave, 

Even in her own proud clime. 
She wore no funeral-weeds for thee. 

Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume 
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree 
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, 

The heartless luxury of the tomb ; 
But she remembers thee as one 



1 86 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Long loved and for a season gone ; 
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, 
Her marble wrought, her music breathed ; 
For thee she rings the birthday bells ; 
Of thee her babe's first lisping tells ; 
For thine her evening prayer is said 
At palace-couch and cottage-bed ; 
Her soldier, closing with the foe. 
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow ; 
His plighted maiden, when she fears 
For him the joy of her young years, 
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears ; 

And she, the mother of thy boys, 
Though in her eye and faded cheek 
Is read the grief she will not speak, 

The memory of her buried joys, 
And even she who gave thee birth 
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth. 

Talk of thy doom without a sigh ; 
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's : 
One of the few, the immortal names. 

That were not born to die. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

[Born at New York City, April 3, 1 7S3 ; died at " Sunnyside,'' near Tarrytown, 
New York, November 28, 1859] 

GOVERNOR WOUTER VAN TWILLER 
From "A Histoky of Nkw York by Diedrich Knickerbocker" 

It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van 
Twiller was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nether- 
lands, under the commission and control of their High Mighti- 
nesses the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and 
privileged West India Company. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 187 

This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in 
the merry month of June, the sweetest month in all the year ; 
when Dan Apollo seems to dance up the transparent firmament, 
— when the robin, the thrush, and a thousand other wanton song- 
sters, make the woods to resound with amorous ditties, and the 
luxurious little boblincon revels among the clover blossoms of 
the meadows, — all which happy coincidence persuaded the old 
dames of New Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of fore- 
telling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous 
administration. 

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended 
from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively 
dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magis- 
tracy in Rotterdam ; and who had comported themselves with 
such singular wisdom and propriety, that they were never either 
heard or talked of — which, next to being universally applauded, 
should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. 
There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in 
the world : one, by talking faster than they think, and the other, 
by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, 
many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts ; 
by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of 
birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by 
the way, is a casual remark, which I would not for the universe, 
have it thought that I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true 
he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely 
spoke, except in monosyllables ; but then it was allowed he sel- 
dom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he 
was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through the whole 
course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered 
in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was 
observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he 
would deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much 
explanation, the joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would 
continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out 
the ashes, would exclaim, " Well, I see nothing in all that to 
laugh about." 



1 88 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a 
subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing mag- 
nitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a 
scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine 
both sides of it. Certain it is, that if any matter were propounded 
to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine at first 
glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake his capa- 
cious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at length 
observe, that "" he had his doubts about the matter " ; which gained 
him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed 
upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name ; for to this 
habit of the mind has been attributed his surname Twiller ; which 
is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain 
English, Doubter. 

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and 
proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of 
some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly 
grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six 
feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, 
and of such stupendous dimensions, that Dame Nature, with all 
her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck 
capable of supporting it ; wherefore she wisely declined the 
attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just 
between the shoulders. His body was oblong and particularly 
capacious at bottom ; which was wisely ordered by Providence, 
seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse 
to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in 
proportion to the weight they had to sustain ; so that when erect 
he had not little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His 
face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, 
unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure 
the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two 
small grey eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of 
lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, and his full red cheeks, 
which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into 
his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, 
like a Spitzenberg apple. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 189 

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his 
four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each ; he 
smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining 
twelve of the twenty-four. Such was the renowned Wouter Van 
Twiller, — a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated 
above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of 
this world. He had lived in it for years, without feeling the least 
curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it round 
the sun ; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the 
smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling 
his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philoso- 
pher would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising 
above the surrounding atmosphere. 

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He 
sat in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of 
the Hague, fabricated by an experienced timberman of Amsterdam, 
and curiously carved about the arms and feet, into exact imitations 
of gigantic eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long 
Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been 
presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty 
with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would 
he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his 
right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours 
together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black 
frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has 
even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length 
and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut 
his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be dis- 
turbed by external objects ; and at such times the internal com- 
motion of his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, 
which his admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, 
made by his contending doubts and opinions. 



I90 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 

Found among the Papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker 

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
Forever flushing round a summer sky. 

Castle of Indolence 

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the 
eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river 
denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and 
where they ahvays prudently shortened sail and implored the pro- 
tection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market 
town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which 
is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. 
This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good house- 
wives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their 
husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that 
as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for 
the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, 
perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land 
among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole 
world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough 
to lull one to repose ; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping 
of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon 
the uniform tranquillity. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel- 
shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of 
the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is 
peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it 
broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and rever- 
berated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat 
whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream 
quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more 
promising than this little valley. 

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character 
of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 191 

settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name 
of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow 
Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy 
influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very 
atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high 
German doctor, during the early days of the settlement ; others, 
that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held 
his pow-wows there before the country was discovered by Master 
Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under 
the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds 
of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. 
They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs ; are subject to 
trances and visions ; and frequently see strange sights, and hear 
music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds 
with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions ; stars 
shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other 
part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole nine-fold, 
seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, 
and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is 
the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said 
by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had 
been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during 
the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the 
country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the 
wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but 
extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity 
of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authen- 
tic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and 
collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the 
body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost 
rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and 
that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the 
Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and 
in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. 

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which 
has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of 



192 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

shadows ; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by 
the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned 
is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is uncon- 
sciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. How- 
ever wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy 
region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence 
of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and 
see apparitions, 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it is in 
such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed 
in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and cus- 
toms remain fixed ; while the great torrent of migration and improve- 
ment, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this 
restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those 
little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream ; where we 
may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly 
revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the 
passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the 
drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should 
not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in 
its sheltered bosom. 

In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of 
American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy 
wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he ex- 
pressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instruct- 
ing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, 
a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as 
well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier 
woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane 
was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly 
lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled 
a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, 
and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was 
small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and 
a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon 
his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 193 

striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes 
bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him 
for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scare- 
crow eloped from a cornfield. 

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely 
constructed of logs ; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched 
with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at 
vacant hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and 
stakes set against the window shutters ; so that though a thief might 
get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in get- 
ting out, — an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost 
Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot. The schoolhouse stood 
in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody 
hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch-tree grow- 
ing at one ^nd of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' 
voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy sum- 
mer's day, like the hum of a beehive ; interrupted now and then 
by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or 
command ; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, 
as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowl- 
edge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore 
in mind the golden maxim, " Spare the rod and spoil the child." 
Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those 
cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their sub- 
jects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination 
rather than severity, taken the burthen off the backs of the weak, 
and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, 
that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with 
indulgence ; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a 
double portion on some little, tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted 
Dutch urchin, who sulked, and swelled, and grew dogged and 
sullen beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his duty" by 
their parents ; and he never inflicted a chastisement without fol- 
lowing it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, 
that "he would remember it, and thank him for it the longest 
day he had to live." 



194 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

When school-hours were over, he was even the companion and 
playmate of the larger boys ; and, on holiday afternoons, would con- 
voy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty 
sisters or good housewives for mothers noted for the comforts of the 
cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his 
pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small and would 
have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for 
he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers 
of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according 
to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses 
of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With these he lived 
successively a week at a time ; thus going the rounds of the neighbor- 
hood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his 
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the cost of schooling a 
grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various 
ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted 
the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped 
to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove 
the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid 
aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which 
he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonder- 
fully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the 
mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest ; and 
like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did 
hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle 
with his foot for whole hours together. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master 
of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by in- 
structing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little 
vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church 
gallery, with a band of chosen singers ; where, in his own mind, 
he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it 
is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation ; 
and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and 
which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side 
of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD' 195 

legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by 
divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is commonly 
denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on 
tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing 
of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in 
the female circle of a rural neighborhood ; being considered a 
kind of idle, gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and 
accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior 
in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt 
to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farm-house, and 
the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, 
peradventure, the parade of a silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, 
therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country 
damsels. How he would figure among them in the church-yard, 
between services on Sundays ! gathering grapes for them from the 
wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees ; reciting for their 
amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones ; or sauntering 
with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill- 
pond ; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly 
back, envying his superior elegance and address. 

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling 
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house 
to house : so that his appearance was always greeted with satis- 
faction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man 
of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, 
and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's " History of New 
England Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he most firmly and 
potently believed. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple 
credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digest- 
ing it. were equally extraordinary ; and both had been increased by 
his lesidence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or 
monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after 
his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on 
the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered 
by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, 



196 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

until the gathering dusk of evening made the printed page a mere 
mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and 
stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened 
to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, flut- 
tered his excited imagination, — the moan of the whip-poor-will 
from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger 
of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden 
rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The 
fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, 
now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would 
stream across his path ; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a 
beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor 
varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was 
struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, 
either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing 
psalm-tunes ; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat 
by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing 
his nasal melody, " in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating 
from the distant hill, or along the dusky road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long 
winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning 
by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along 
the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and gob- 
lins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, 
and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or 
Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. 
He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and 
of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, 
which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut ; and would 
frighten them wofully with speculations upon comets and shooting 
stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn 
round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy ! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling 
in the chimney-corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow 
from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no spectre 
dared to show his face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors 
of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 197 

shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a 
snowy night ! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling 
ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant 
window ! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with 
snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path ! How 
often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own 
steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet ; and dread to look over 
his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping 
close behind him ! and how often was he thrown into complete 
dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the 
idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly 
scourings ! 

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms 
of the mind that walk in darkness ; and though he had seen many 
spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in 
divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an 
end to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleasant life 
of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had 
not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal 
man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put 
together, and that was — a woman. 

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in 
each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina 
Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch 
farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen ; plump as a 
partridge ; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's 
peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her 
vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might 
be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient 
and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She 
wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great- 
grandmother had brought over from Saardam ; the tempting stom- 
acher of the olden time ; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, 
to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. 

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex ; and 
it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found 
favor in his eyes ; more especially after he had visited her in her 



198 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of 
a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, 
sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his 
own farm ; but within those everything was snug, happy, and well- 
conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it ; 
and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance rather than the style 
in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of 
the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in 
which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm- 
tree spread its broad branches over it ; at the foot of which bubbled 
up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed 
of a barrel ; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to 
a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf 
willows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have 
served for a church ; every window and crevice of which seemed 
bursting forth with the treasures of the farm ; the flail was busily 
resounding within it from morning till night ; swallows and martins 
skimmed twittering about the eaves ; and rows of pigeons, some 
with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their 
heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others 
swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying 
the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting 
in the repose and abundance of their pens ; whence sallied forth, 
now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A 
stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, 
convoying whole fleets of ducks ; regiments of turkeys were gob- 
bling through the farm-yard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it, 
like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. 
Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a 
husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished 
wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart, — some- 
times tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously call- 
ing his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich 
morsel which he had discovered. 

The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon this sump- 
tuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's 
eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 199 

a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth ; the pigeons 
were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with 
a coverlet of crust ; the geese were swimming in their own gravy ; 
and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, 
with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw 
carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham ; 
not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard 
under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages ; 
and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in 
a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which 
his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. 

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled 
his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of 
wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards 
burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement 
of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to in- 
herit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea, 
how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money in- 
vested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the 
wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and 
presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of 
children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household 
trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath ; and he beheld 
himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting 
out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where. 

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was com- 
plete. It was one of those spacious farm-houses, with high-ridged, 
but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the 
first Dutch settlers ; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza 
along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under 
this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and 
nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along 
the sides for summer use ; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, 
and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this 
important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering 
Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion 
and the place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, 



200 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood 
a huge bag of wool ready to be spun ; in another a quantity 
of linsey-woolsey just from the loom ; ears of Indian corn and 
strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along 
the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers ; and a door 
left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw- 
footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors ; and 
irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from 
their covert of asparagus tops ; mock-oranges and conch-shells 
decorated the mantelpiece ; strings of various-colored birds' eggs 
were suspended above it ; a great ostrich' egg was hung from 
the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left 
open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended 
china. 

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of 
delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study 
was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van 
Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties 
than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom 
had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like 
easily conquered adversaries, to contend with ; and had to make 
his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of 
adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was con- 
fined ; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his 
way to the centre of a Christmas pie ; and then the lady gave him 
her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to 
win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a laby- 
rinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new 
difficulties and impediments ; and he had to encounter a host of 
fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic ad- 
mirers, who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and 
angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common 
cause against any new competitor. 

Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, royster- 
ing blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch 
abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, 
which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 20i 

broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, 
and a bluff, but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air 
of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers 
of limb, he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which 
he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge 
and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a 
Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock-fights ; and, with 
the ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was 
the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving 
his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. 
He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic ; but had more 
mischief than ill-will in his composition ; and, with all his over- 
bearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor 
at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded 
him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the 
country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles 
round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, sur- 
mounted with a flaunting fox's tail ; and when the folks at a 
country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, 
whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood 
by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along 
past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a 
troop of Don Cossacks ; and the old dames, startled out of their 
sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered 
by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang! " 
The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, 
and good-will ; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred 
in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom 
Bones was at the bottom of it. 

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming 
Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his 
amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and en- 
dearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether 
discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for 
rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion 
in his amours ; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to 
Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master 



202 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

was courting, or, as it is termed, "' sparking," within, all other 
suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other quarters. 
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to 
contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would 
have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have de- 
spaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perse- 
verance in his nature ; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack 

— yielding, but tough ; though he bent, he never broke ; and though 
he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away 

— jerk ! he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. 
To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been 

madness ; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any 
more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made 
his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under 
cover of his character of singing-master, he had made frequent 
visits at the farm-house ; not that he had anything to apprehend 
from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often 
a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an 
easy, indulgent soul ; he loved his daughter better even than his 
pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her 
have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough 
to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry ; for, 
as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and 
must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus 
while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning- 
wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would sit smoking his 
evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little 
wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most 
valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the 
meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by 
the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in 
the twilight, — that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence. 

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. 
To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. 
Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access, 
while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a 
thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 203 

former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain posses- 
sion of the latter, for the man must battle for his fortress at every 
door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is 
therefore entitled to some renown ; but he who keeps undisputed 
sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, 
this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from 
the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the 
former evidently declined ; his horse was no longer seen tied at 
the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose 
between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. 

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would 
fain have carried matters to open warfare and have settled their 
pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those most con- 
cise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore, — by single 
combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of 
his adversary to enter the lists against him ; he had overheard a 
boast of Bones, that he would " double the schoolmaster up, and 
lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse," and he was too wary 
to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely pro- 
voking in this obstinately pacific system ; it left Brom no alternative 
but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, 
and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod be- 
came the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang 
of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains, 
smoked out his singing-school by stopping up the chimney, broke 
into the schoolhouse at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings 
of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so 
that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the 
country held their meetings there. But what was still more annoy- 
ing, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in 
presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught 
to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival 
of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody. 

In this way matters went on for some time, without producing 
any material effect on the relative situations of the contending 
powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, 
sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched 



204 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

all the concerns of his Httle literary realm. In his hand he swayed 
a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power ; the birch of justice reposed 
on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers ; 
while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband 
articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of 
idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, 
fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. 
Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice recently 
inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, 
or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master ; 
and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the schoolroom. 
It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow- 
cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like 
the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, 
half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. 
He came clattering up to the school-door with an invitation to 
Ichabod to attend a merry-making or " quilting-frolic," to be held 
that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's ; and having delivered his 
message with that air of importance and effort at fine language 
which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, 
he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the 
Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission. 

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. 
The scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stopping 
at trifles ; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, 
and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in 
the rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. 
Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, 
inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole 
school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting 
forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about 
the green, in joy at their early emancipation. 

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his 
toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of 
rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass, 
that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appear- 
ance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 205 

a horse from the farmer with whom he was domicihated, a choleric 
old Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly 
mounted, issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. 
But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give 
some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his 
steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse, 
that had outlived almost every thing but his viciousness. He was 
gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer ; 
his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs ; one 
eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral ; but the other 
had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire 
and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of 
Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master's, 
the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, 
very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal ; for, old and 
broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in 
him than in any young filly in the country. 

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with 
short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel 
of the saddle ; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers' ; he 
carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and 
as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the 
flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of 
his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and 
the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. 
Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled 
out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an 
apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. 

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day ; the sky was clear 
and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we 
always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put 
on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer 
kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, 
purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make 
their appearance high in the air ; the bark of the squirrel might be 
heard from the groves of beech and hickory-nuts, and the pensive 
whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble field. 



2o6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the 
fulness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, 
from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very pro- 
fusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock-robin, 
the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous 
notes ; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds ; and 
the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad 
black gorget, and splendid plumage ; and the cedar-bird, with its 
red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail, and its litde monteiro cap of 
feathers ; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light- 
blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nod- 
ding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms 
with every songster of the grove. 

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to 
every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over 
the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast stores 
of apples ; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees ; 
some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market ; others 
heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld 
great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their 
leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty- 
pudding ; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning 
up their round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of 
the most luxurious of pies ; and anon he passed the fragrant buck- 
wheat fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive, and as he beheld 
them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, 
well buttered and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate 
little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. 

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and '" sugared 
suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills 
which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty 
Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the 
west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and 
glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved 
and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few 
amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move 
them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 207 

into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the 
mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the 
precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater 
depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop 
was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, 
her sail hanging uselessly against the mast ; and as the reflection 
of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel 
was suspended in the air. 

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the 
Herr Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and 
flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern- 
faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge 
shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered little 
dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted short-gowns, homespun 
petticoats, with scissors and pin-cushions, and gay calico pockets 
hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as 
their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or per- 
haps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, 
in short square-skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass but- 
tons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, 
especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it 
being esteemed, throughout the country, as a potent nourisher 
and strengthener of the hair. 

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come 
to the gathering on his favorite steed, Daredevil, a creature, like 
himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but him- 
self could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious 
animals, given to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in 
constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable well-broken 
horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. 

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst 
upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor 
of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, 
with their luxurious display of red and white, but the ample charms 
of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of 
autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost 
indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives ! 



2o8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There was the doughty doughnut, the tenderer oly koek, and the 
crisp and crumbUng cruller ; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger- 
cakes and honey-cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then 
there were apple-pies and peach-pies and pumpkin pies ; besides 
slices of ham and smoked beef ; and moreover delectable dishes 
of preserved plums^ and peaches, and pears, and quinces ; not to 
mention broiled shad and roasted chickens ; together with bowls 
of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as 
I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up its 
clouds of vapor from the midst — Heaven bless the mark ! I want 
breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too 
eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so 
great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. 

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in 
proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits 
rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, 
too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with 
the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of 
almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how 
soon he 'd turn his back upon the old schoolhouse ; snap his 
fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly 
patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should 
dare to call him comrade! 

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a 
face dilated with content and good-humor, round and jolly as the 
harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expres- 
sive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoul- 
der, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to '" fall to, and help 
themselves." 

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or 
hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray- 
headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neigh- 
borhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old 
and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped 
on two or three strings, accompanying every movement of the bow 
with a motion of the head ; bowing almost to the ground, and 
stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 209 

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his 
vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle ; and to 
have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering 
about the room, you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that 
blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. 
He was the admiration of all the negroes ; who, having gathered, 
of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood 
forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and win- 
dow, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white eye-balls, 
and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the 
flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous .-' the lady 
of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in 
reply to all his amorous oglings ; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten 
with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner. 

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot 
of the sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one 
end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, atid drawing out 
long stories about the war. 

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am ''speaking, was 
one of those highly favored places which abound with chronicle 
and great men. The British and American line had run near it 
during the war ; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, 
and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border 
chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each story 
teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in 
the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the hero 
of every exploit. 

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded 
Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron 
nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at 
the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall 
be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, 
who, in the battle of White-Plains, being an excellent master of 
defence, parried a musket-ball with a small sword, insomuch that 
he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at the 
hilt ; in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the 
sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that 



2IO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was 
persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war 
to a happy termination. 

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions 
that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures 
of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these shel- 
tered, long-settled retreats ; but are trampled under foot by the 
shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country 
places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of 
our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first 
nap and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving 
friends have travelled away from the neighborhood ; so that when 
they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaint- 
ance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so 
seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch 
communities. 

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of super- 
natural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity 
of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew 
from that haunted region ; it breathed forth an atmosphere of 
dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy 
Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were 
doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales 
were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings 
heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major 
Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some 
mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the 
dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter 
nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The 
chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre 
of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard 
several times of late, patrolling the country ; and, it was said, 
tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the church-yard. 

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have 
made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, 
surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its 
decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 21 1 

beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope de- 
scends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, 
between which peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hud- 
son. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem 
to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead 
might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide 
woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks 
and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, 
not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge ; 
the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded 
by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the day 
time, but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. This was one of 
the favorite haunts of the headless horseman ; and the place where 
he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old 
Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the 
horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was 
obliged to get up behind him ; how they galloped over bush and 
brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge ; when 
the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer 
into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of 
thunder. 

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous ad- 
venture of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian 
as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from 
the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by 
this midnight trooper ; that he had offered to race with him for 
a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat 
the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church 
bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. 

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men 
talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and 
then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep 
in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large ex- 
tracts from his invaluable author. Cotton Mather, and added many 
marvellous events that had taken place in his native State of Con- 
necticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks 
about Sleepy Hollow. 



212 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered 
together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some 
time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. 
Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite 
swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter 
of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and 
fainter, until they gradually died away, — and the late scene of 
noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered 
behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a- 
tete with the heiress ; fully convinced that he was now on the high 
road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend 
to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, 
must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very 
great interval, with an air quite desolate and chopfallen. — Oh, 
these women ! these women ! Could that girl have been playing 
off any of her coquettish tricks ? — Was her encouragement of the 
poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his 
rival ? — - Heaven only knows, not I ! — Let it suffice to say, Icha- 
bod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen- 
roost rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right 
or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which he had so 
often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several 
hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from 
the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dream- 
ing of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy 
and clover. 

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy- 
hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travels homewards, along the 
sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which 
he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as 
dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky 
and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of 
a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush 
of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watch-dog from 
the opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it was so vague and faint 
as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion 
of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 213 

accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm- 
house away among the hills — but it was like a dreaming sound 
in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally 
the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of 
a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably 
and turning suddenly in his bed. 

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the 
afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night 
grew darker and darker ; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the 
sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He 
had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approach- 
ing the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories 
had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip 
tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the 
neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were 
gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary 
trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the 
air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate 
Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally 
known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people 
regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of 
sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the 
tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told concerning it. 

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle : 
he thought his whistle was answered — it was but a blast sweeping 
sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, 
he thought he saw something white hanging in the midst of the 
tree — ■ he paused and ceased whistling ; but on looking more nar- 
rowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed 
by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a 
groan — his teeth chattered and his knees smote against the saddle: 
it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they 
were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, 
but new perils lay before him. 

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed 
the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known 
by the name of Wiley's swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by 



<^ 



214 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road 
where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, 
matted thick with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over 
it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this iden- 
tical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the 
covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen con- 
cealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered 
a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy 
who has to pass it alone after dark. 

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump ; he 
summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a 
score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the 
bridge ; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal 
made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. 
Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on 
the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot : it was all 
in vain ; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to 
the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder 
bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel upon 
the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuf- 
fling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a 
suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. 
Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge 
caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod, In the dark shadow of the 
grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, 
misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered 
up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon 
the traveller. 

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with 
terror. What was to be done .'' To turn and fly was now too late ; 
and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if 
such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind .? Sum- 
moning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stam- 
mering accents, "Who are you.?" He received no reply. He 
repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was 
no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible 
Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 215 

fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm 
put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at once 
in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, 
yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascer- 
tained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and 
mounted on a- black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer 
of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the 
road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had 
now got over his fright and waywardness. 

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, 
and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the 
Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving 
him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an 
equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag 
behind, — the other did the same. His heart began to sink within 
him ; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched 
tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a 
stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of 
this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It 
was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, 
which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against "the 
sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror- 
struck on perceiving that he was headless ! but his horror was still 
more increased on observing that the head, which should have 
rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of 
his saddle ! His terror rose to desperation ; he rained a shower 
of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden move- 
ment to give his companion the slip ; but the spectre started full 
jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin ; 
stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy 
garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body 
away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. 

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy 
Hollow ; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, 
instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged 
headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy 
hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it 



2i6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

crosses the bridge famous in goblin story ; and just beyond swells 
the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church. 

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an 
apparent advantage in the chase ; but just as he had got half-way 
through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt 
it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and 
endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and had just time to save 
himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the 
saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled underfoot by his 
pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath 
passed across his mind — for it was his Sunday saddle ; but this 
was no time for petty fears ; the goblin was hard on his haunches ; 
and (unskilful rider that he was !) he had much ado to maintain 
his seat ; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, 
and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, 
with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. 

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that 
the church-bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver 
star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. 
He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees 
beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones's ghostly 
competitor had disappeared. " If I can but reach that bridge," 
thought Ichabod, "' I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed 
panting and blowing close behind him ; he even fancied that he 
felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old 
Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge ; he thundered over the re- 
sounding planks ; he gained the opposite side ; and now Ichabod 
cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according 
to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the 
goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head 
at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too 
late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash, — he 
was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black 
steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind. 

The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, 
and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his 
master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast ; 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 21/ 

dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the 
schoolhouse, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook ; but 
no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasi- 
ness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry 
was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon 
his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found 
the saddle trampled in the dirt ; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply 
dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to 
the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, 
where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the un- 
fortunate Tchabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. 

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was 
not to be discovered, Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, 
examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They 
consisted of two shirts and a half ; two stocks for the neck ; a pair 
or two of worsted stockings ; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes ; 
a rusty razor ; a book of psalm-tunes, full of dogs' ears, and a broken 
pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they 
belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's " History 
of Witchcraft," a "' New England Almanac," and a book of dreams 
and fortune-telling ; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much 
scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy 
of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic 
books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames 
by Hans Van Ripper ; who from that time forward determined to 
send his children no more to school ; observing that he never 
knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever 
money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quar- 
ter's pay but a day or two before, he must have had about his 
person at the time of his disappearance. 

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on 
the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected 
in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and 
pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and 
a whole budget of others, were called to mind ; and when they had 
diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symp- 
toms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the 



2i8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping 
Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody 
troubled his head any more about him. The school was removed 
to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue reigned 
in his stead. 

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on 
a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the 
ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that 
Ichabod Crane was still alive ; that he had left the neighborhood, 
partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly 
in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress ; 
that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country ; 
had kept school and studied law at the same time, had been ad- 
mitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for the 
newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound 
Court. Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival's disappearance 
conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was ob- 
served to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod 
was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention 
of the pumpkin ; which led some to suspect that he knew more 
about the matter than he chose to tell. 

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of 
these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away 
by supernatural means ; and it is a favorite stoiy often told about 
the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge be- 
came more than ever an object of superstitious awe ; and that may 
be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to 
approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The school- 
house being deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be 
haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue ; and the 
plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has 
often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm 
tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 219 

INTERIOR OF THE ALHAMBRA 
From "The Alhambra" 

The Alhambra has been so often and so minutely described by 
travellers, that a mere sketch will probably be sufficient for the 
reader to refresh his recollection ; I will give, therefore, a brief 
account of our visit to it the morning after our arrival in Granada. 
Leaving our posada of La Espada, we traversed the renowned 
square of the Vivarrambla, once the scene of Moorish jousts and 
tournaments, now a crowded market place. From thence we pro- 
ceeded along the Zacatin, the main street of what was the great 
Bazaar, in the time of the Moors, where the small shops and nar- 
row alleys still retain their Oriental character. Crossing an open 
place in front of the palace of the captain-general, we ascended a 
confined and winding street, the name of which reminded us of 
the chivalric days of Granada. It is called the Callc, or street of 
the Gomeres : from a Moorish family, famous in chronicle and 
song. This street led up to a mansion gateway of Grecian archi- 
tecture, built by Charles V,, forming the entrance to the domains 
of the Alhambra. 

At the gate were two or three ragged and superannuated soldiers, 
dozing on a stone bench, the successors of the Zegris and the 
Abencerrages ; while a tall, meagre varlet, whose rusty brown cloak 
was, evidently, intended to conceal the ragged state of his nether 
garments, was lounging in the sunshine, and gossipping with an 
ancient sentinel, on duty. He joined us as we entered the gate, 
and offered his services to show us the fortress. 

I have a traveller's dislike to officious ciceroni, and did not 
altogether like the garb of the applicant : 

'" You are well acquainted with the place, I presume 1 " 
" Ninguno mas — pues, sefior, soy hijo de la Alhambra." 
(Nobody better — in fact, sir, I am a son of the Alhambra.) 
The common Spaniards have certainly a most poetical way of 
expressing themselves — "A son of the Alhambra! " the appel- 
lation caught me at once ; the very tattered garb of my new 
acquaintance assumed a dignity in my eyes. It was emblematic 
of the features of the place, and became the progeny of a ruin. 



220 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

I put some further questions to him, and found his title was 
legitimate. His family had lived in the fortress from generation 
to generation ever since the time of the conquest. His name 
was Mateo Ximenes. "Then, perhaps," said I, "you may be a 
descendant from the great Cardinal Ximenes." 

" Dios sabe ! God knows, senor. It may be so. We are the 
oldest family in the Alhambra. Vicjos Cristianos, old Christians, 
without any taint of Moor or Jew. I know we belong to some 
great family or other, but I forget who. My father knows all 
about it. He has the coat of arms hanging up in his cottage, up 
in the fortress." — There is never a Spaniard, however poor, but 
has some claim to high pedigree. The first title of this ragged 
worthy, however, had completely captivated me, so I gladly accepted 
the services of the " son of the Alhambra." 

We now found ourselves in a deep, narrow ravine, filled with 
beautiful groves, with a steep avenue, and various footpaths wind- 
ing through it, bordered with stone seats, and ornamented with 
fountains. To our left we beheld the towers of the Alhambra 
beetling above us ; to our right, on the opposite side of the ravine, 
we were equally dominated by rival towers on a rocky eminence. 
These, we were told, were the Torres Vermejos, or vermilion 
towers, so called from their ruddy hue. No one knows their origin. 
They are of a date much anterior to the Alhambra : some suppose 
them to have been built by the Romans ; others, by some wander- 
ing colony of Phoenicians. Ascending the steep and shady avenue, 
we arrived at the foot of a huge square Moorish tower, forming a 
kind of barbican, through which passed the main entrance to the 
fortress. Within the barbican was a group of veteran invalids, one 
mounting guard at the portal, while the rest, wrapped in their 
tattered cloaks, slept on the stone benches. This portal is called 
the Gate of Justice, from the tribunal held within its porch during 
the Moslem domination, for the immediate trial of petty causes : a 
custom common to the Oriental nations, and occasionally alluded 
to in the Sacred Scriptures. 

The great vestibule, or porch of the gate, is formed by an im- 
mense Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half 
the height of the tower. On the keystone of this arch is engraven 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 221 

a gigantic hand. Within the vestibule on the keystone of the portal, 
is sculptured, in like manner, a gigantic key. Those who pretend 
to some knowledge of Mohammedan symbols, affirm that the hand 
is the emblem of doctrine and the key of faith ; the latter, we are 
told, was emblazoned on the standard of the Moslems in opposition 
to the Christian emblem of the cross, when they subdued Andalusia, 
A different explanation of these emblems, however, was given by 
the legitimate son of the Alhambra, and one more in unison with 
the notions of the common people, who attach something of mystery 
and magic to everything Moorish, and have all kinds of superstitions 
connected with this old Moslem fortress. 

According to Mateo, it was a tradition handed down from the 
oldest inhabitants, and which he had from his father and grand- 
father, that the hand and key were magical devices on which the 
fate of the Alhambra depended. The Moorish king who built it 
was a great magician, or, as some believed, had sold himself to the 
devil, and had laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By this 
means it had remained standing for several hundred years, in de- 
fiance of storms and earthquakes, while almost all other buildings 
of the Moors had fallen to ruin and disappeared. This spell, the 
tradition went on to say, would last until the hand on the outer 
arch should reach down and grasp the key, when the whole pile 
would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures buried beneath it by 
the Moors would be revealed. 

Notwithstanding this ominous prediction, we ventured to pass 
through the spell-bound gateway, feeling some little assurance 
against magic art in the protection of the Virgin, a statue of 
whom we observed above the portal. 

After passing through the Barbican, we ascended a narrow lane, 
winding between walls, and came on an open esplanade within 
the fortress, called the Plaza de los Algibes, or Place of the Cis- 
terns, from great reservoirs which undermine it, cut in the living 
rock by the Moors, for the supply of the fortress. Here, also, is 
a well of immense depth, furnishing the purest and coldest of 
water, — another monument of the delicate taste of the Moors, 
who were indefatigable in their exertions to obtain that element 
in its crystal purity. 



222 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In front of this esplanade is the splendid pile, commenced by 
Charles V., intended, it is said, to eclipse the residence of the 
Moslem kings. With all its grandeur and architectural merit, it 
appeared to us like an arrogant intrusion, and passing by it we 
entered a simple unostentatious portal, opening into the interior 
of the Moorish palace. 

The transition was almost magical ; it seemed as if we were at 
once transported into other times and another realm, and were 
treading the scenes of Arabian story. We found ourselves in a 
great court paved with white marble and decorated at each end 
with light Moorish peristyles. It is called the court of the Alberca. 
In the centre was an immense basin, or fish-pool, a hundred and 
thirty feet in length, by thirty in breadth, stocked with gold-fish, 
and bordered by hedges of roses. At the upper end of this court, 
rose the great tower of Comares. 

From the lower end, we passed through a Moorish arch-way 
into the renowned Court of Lions. There is no part of the edifice 
that gives us a more complete idea of its original beauty and mag- 
nificence than this ; for none has suffered so little from the ravages 
of time. In the centre stands the fountain famous in song and 
story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops, and the 
twelve lions which support them, cast forth their crystal streams as 
in the days of Boabdil. The court is laid out in flower beds, and 
surrounded by light Arabian arcades of open filigree work, sup- 
ported by slender pillars of white marble. The architecture, like 
that of all the other parts of the palace, is characterized by ele- 
gance, rather than grandeur, bespeaking a delicate and graceful 
taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one looks 
upon the apparently fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to 
believe that so much has survived the wear and tear of centuries, 
the shocks of earthquakes, the violence of war, and the quiet, 
though no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful traveller ; it is 
almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition, that the whole 
is protected by a magic charm. 

On one side of the court, a portal richly adorned opens into a 
lofty hall paved with white marble, and called the Hall of the Two 
Sisters. A cupola or lantern admits a tempered light from above, 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 223 

and a free circulation of air. The lower part of the walls is incrusted 
with beautiful Moorish tiles, on some of which are emblazoned the 
escutcheons of the Moorish monarchs : the upper part is faced with 
the fine stucco work invented at Damascus, consisting of large plates 
cast in moulds and artfully joined, so as to have the appearance of 
having been laboriously sculptured by the hand into light relievos 
and fanciful arabesques, intermingled with texts of the Koran, and 
poetical inscriptions in Arabian and Celtic characters. These dec- 
orations of the walls and cupolas are richly gilded, and the inter- 
stices panelled with lapis lazuli and other brilliant and enduring 
colours. On each side of the wall are recesses for ottomans and 
arches. Above an inner porch, is a balcony which communicated 
with the women's apartment. The latticed balconies still remain, 
from whence the dark-eyed beauties of the harem might gaze 
unseen upon the entertainments of the hall below. 

It is impossible to contemplate this scene, so perfectly Oriental, 
without feeling the early associations of Arabian romance, and almost 
expecting to see the white arm of some mysterious princess beckon- 
ing from the gallery, or some dark eye sparkling through the 
lattice. The abode of beauty is here as if it had been inhabited 
but yesterday ; but where are the two sisters, where the Zoraydas 
and Lindaraxas ! 

On the opposite side of the Court of the Lions is the Hall of 
the Abencerrages, so called from the gallant cavaliers of that illus- 
trious line, who were here perfidiously massacred. There are some 
who doubt the whole truth of this story, but our humble attendant, 
Mateo, pointed out the very wicket of the portal through which 
they are said to have been introduced, one by one, and the white 
marble fountain in the centre of the hall, where they were beheaded. 
He showed us also certain broad ruddy stains in the pavement, 
traces of their blood, which, according to popular belief, can never 
be effaced. Finding we listened to him with easy faith, he added, 
that there was often heard at night, in the Court of the Lions, a 
low confused sound, resembling the murmurings of a multitude ; 
with now and then a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of chains. 
These noises are probably produced by the bubbling currents and 
tinkling falls of water, conducted under the pavement through 



224 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

pipes and channels to supply the fountains ; but according to the 
legend of the son of the Alhambra, they are made by the spirits 
of the murdered Abencerrages, who nightly haunt the scene of their 
suffering, and invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer. 

From the Court of Lions, we retraced our steps through the 
court of the Alberca, or great fish-pool, crossing which, we pro- 
ceeded to the tower of Comares, so called from the name of the 
Arabian architect. It is of massive strength, and lofty height, 
domineering over the rest of the edifice, and overhanging the steep 
hill-side, which descends abruptly to the banks of the Darro. A 
Moorish archway admitted us into a vast and lofty hall, which 
occupies the interior of the tower, and was the grand audience 
chamber of the Moslem monarchs, thence called the hall of Am- 
bassadors. It still bears the traces of past magnificence. The walls 
are richly stuccoed and decorated with arabesques, the vaulted ceil- 
ings of cedar wood almost lost in obscurity from its height, still 
gleam with rich gilding and the brilliant tints of the Arabian pencil. 
On three sides of the saloon are deep windows, cut through the 
immense thickness of the walls, the balconies of which look down 
upon the verdant valley of the Darro, the streets and convents of 
the Albaycin, and command a prospect of the distant Vega. I might 
go on to describe the other delightful apartments of this side of the 
palace ; the Tocador or toilet of the Queen, an open belvedere 
on the summit of the tower, where the Moorish sultanas enjoyed 
the pure breezes from the mountain and the prospect of the 
surrounding paradise. The secluded little patio or garden of Lin- 
daraxa, with its alabaster fountain, its thickets of roses and myrtles, 
of citrons and oranges. The cool halls and grottoes of the baths, 
where the glare and heat of day are tempered into a self-mysterious 
light and a pervading freshness. But I appear to dwell minutely 
on these scenes. My object is merely to give the reader a gen- 
eral introduction into an abode, where, if disposed, he may linger 
and loiter with me through the remainder of this work, gradually 
becoming familiar with all its beauties. 

An abundant supply of water, brought from the mountains by old 
Moorish aqueducts, circulates throughout the palace, supplying its 
baths and fish-pools, sparkling in jets within its halls, or murmuring 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 225 

in channels along the marble pavements. When it has paid its 
tribute to the royal pile, and visited its gardens and pastures, it 
flows down the long avenue leading to the city, tinkling in rills, 
gushing in fountains, and maintaining a perpetual verdure in those 
groves that embower and beautify the whole hill of the Alhambra. 

Those, only, who have sojourned in the ardent climates of the 
South, can appreciate the delights of an abode combining the breezy 
coolness of the mountain with the freshness and verdure of the valley. 

While the city below pants with the noon-tide heat, and the 
parched Vega trembles to the eye, the delicate airs from the Sierra 
Nevada play through the lofty halls, bringing with them the sweet- 
ness of the surrounding gardens. Every thing invites to that indo- 
lent repose, the bliss of Southern climes ; and while the half-shut 
eye looks out from shaded balconies upon the glittering landscape, 
the ear is lulled by the rustling of groves, and the murmur of 
running streams. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 

[Born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789; died at Cooperstown, 
New York, September 14, 1851] 

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS 

Chap. XXIII 

But though the beast of game 
The privilege of chase may claim ; 
Though space and law the stag we lend 
Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend ; 
Who ever reeked, where, how, or when 
The prowling fox was trapped or slain ? 

Lady of the Lake 

It is unusual to find an encampment of the natives, like those 
of the more instructed whites, guarded by the presence of armed 
men. Well informed of the approach of every danger, while it is 
yet at a distance, the Indian generally rests secure under his knowl- 
edge of the signs of the forest, and the long and difficult paths that 



226 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

separate him from those he has most reason to dread. But the 
enemy who, by any lucky concurrence of accidents, has found 
means to elude the vigilance of the scouts, will seldom meet with 
sentinels nearer home to sound the alarm. In addition to this 
general usage, the tribes friendly to the French knew too well the 
weight of the blow that had just been struck, to apprehend any 
immediate danger from the hostile nations that were tributary to 
the crown of Britain. 

When Duncan and David, therefore, found themselves in the 
centre of the children, who played the antics already mentioned, 
it was without the least previous intimation of their approach. But 
so soon as they were observed the whole of the juvenile pack raised, 
by common consent, a shrill and warning whoop ; and then sank, 
as it were, by magic, from before the sight of their visitors. The 
naked, tawny bodies of the crouching urchins blended so nicely at 
that hour, with the withered herbage, that at first it seemed as if 
the earth had, in truth, swallowed up their forms ; though when 
surprise permitted Duncan to bend his look more curiously about the 
spot, he found it everywhere met by dark, quick, and rolling eyeballs. 

Gathering no encouragement from this startling presage of the 
nature of the scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more 
mature judgments of the men, there was an instant when the young 
soldier would have retreated. It was, however, too late to appear 
to hesitate. The cry of the children had drawn a dozen warriors 
to the door of the nearest lodge, where they stood clustered in a 
dark and savage group, gravely awaiting the nearer approach of 
those who had unexpectedly come among them. 

David, in some measure familiarized to the scene, led the way 
with a steadiness that no slight obstacle was likely to disconcert, 
into this very building. It was the principal edifice of the village, 
though roughly constructed of the bark and branches of trees ; 
being the lodge in which the tribe held its councils and public 
meetings during their temporary residence on the borders of the 
English province. Duncan found it difficult to assume the neces- 
sary appearance of uhconcern, as he brushed the dark and powerful 
frames of the savages who thronged its threshold ; but, conscious 
that his existence depended on his presence of mind, he trusted to 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 227 

the discretion of his companion, whose footsteps he closely fol- 
lowed, endeavoring, as he proceeded, to rally his thoughts for the 
occasion. His blood curdled when he found himself in absolute 
contact with such fierce and implacable enemies ; but he so far 
mastered his feelings as to pursue his way into the centre of the 
lodge, with an exterior that did not betray the weakness. Imitating 
the example of the deliberate Gamut, he drew a bundle of fragrant 
brush from beneath a pile that filled the corner of the hut, and 
seated himself in silence. 

So soon as their visitor had passed, the observant warriors fell 
back from the entrance, and arranging themselves about him, they 
seemed patiently to await the moment when it might comport with 
the dignity of the stranger to speak. By far the greater number 
stood leaning, in lazy, lounging attitudes, against the upright posts 
that supported the crazy building, while three or four of the oldest 
and most distinguished of the chiefs placed themselves on the 
earth a little more in advance, 

A flaring torch was burning in the place, and sent its red glare 
from face to face and figure to figure, as it waved in the currents 
of air. Duncan profited by its light to read the probable character 
of his reception, in the countenances of his hosts. But his in- 
genuity availed him little against the cold artifices of the people 
he had encountered. The chiefs in front scarce cast a glance at 
his person, keeping their eyes on the ground, with an air that 
might have been intended for respect, but which it was quite easy 
to construe into distrust. The men in shadow were less reserved. 
Duncan soon detected their searching, but stolen looks, which, in 
truth, scanned his person and attire inch by inch ; leaving no 
emotion of the countenance, no gesture, no line of the paint, nor 
even the fashion of a garment, unheeded, and without comment. 

At length one whose hair was beginning to be sprinkled with 
gray, but whose sinewy limbs and firm tread announced that he 
was still equal to the duties of manhood, advanced out of the 
gloom of a corner, whither he had probably posted himself to 
make his observations unseen, and spoke. He used the language 
of the Wyandots, or Hurons ; his words were, consequently, unin- 
telligible to Heyward, though they seemed, by the gestures that 



228 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

accompanied them, to be uttered more in courtesy than anger. 
The latter shook his head, and made a gesture indicative of his 
inability to reply. 

"" Do none of my brothers speak the French or the English .? " 
he said, in the former language, looking about him from counte- 
nance to countenance, in hopes of finding a nod of assent. 

Though more than one had turned, as if to catch the meaning 
of his words, they remained unanswered. 

"" I should be grieved to think," continued Duncan, speaking 
slowly, and using the simplest French of which he was the master, 
"to believe that none of this wise and brave nation understand 
the language that the ' Grand Monarque ' uses when he talks to 
his children. His heart would be heavy did he believe his red 
warriors paid him so little respect! " 

A long and grave pause succeeded, during which no movement 
of a limb, nor any expression of an eye, betrayed the impression 
produced by his remark. Duncan, who knew that silence was a 
virtue among his hosts, gladly had recourse to the custom, in order 
to arrange his ideas. At length the same warrior who had before 
addressed him replied, by dryly demanding in the language of the 
Canadas : — 

" When our Great Father speaks to his people, is it with the 
tongue of a Huron .? " 

'" He knows no difference in his children, whether the color of 
the skin be red, or black, or white," returned Duncan, evasively ; 
" though chiefly is he satisfied with the brave Hurons." 

" In what manner will he speak," demanded the wary chief, 
" when the runners count to him the scalps which five nights ago 
grew on the heads of the Yengeese ? " 

" They were his enemies," said Duncan, shuddering involun- 
tarily ; "and doubtless, he will say, it is good; my Hurons are 
very gallant." 

" Our Canada father does not think it. Instead of looking for- 
ward to reward his Indians, his eyes are turned backward. He 
sees the dead Yengeese, but no Huron. What can this mean } " 

" A great chief, like him, has more thoughts than tongues. He 
looks to see that no enemies are on his trail." 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 229 

" The canoe of a dead warrior will not float on the Horican," 
returned the savage, gloomily. "His ears are open to the Dela- 
wares, who are not our friends, and they fill them with lies." 

" It cannot be. See ; he has bid me, who am a man that knows 
the art of healing, to go to his children, the red Hurons of the 
great lakes, and ask if any are sick ! " 

Another silence succeeded this annunciation of the character 
Duncan had assumed. Every eye was simultaneously bent on his 
person, as if to inquire into the truth or falsehood of the declara- 
tion, with an intelligence and keenness that caused the subject of 
their scrutiny to tremble for the result. He was, however, relieved 
again by the former speaker. 

" Do the cunning men of the Canadas paint their skins ? " the 
Huron coldly continued ; "we have heard them boast that their 
faces were pale." 

" When an Indian chief comes among his white fathers," 
returned Duncan, with great steadiness, " he lays aside his buf- 
falo robe, to carry the shirt that is offered him. My brothers have 
given me paint, and I wear it." 

A low murmur of applause announced that the compliment to 
the tribe was favorably received. The elderly chief made a gesture 
of commendation, which was answered by most of his companions, 
who each threw forth a hand and uttered a brief exclamation of 
pleasure. Duncan began to breathe more freely, believing that 
the weight of his examination was past ; and as he had already 
prepared a simple and probable tale to support his pretended 
occupation, his hopes of ultimate success grew brighter. 

After a silence of a few moments, as if adjusting his thoughts, 
in order to make a suitable answer to the declaration their guest 
had just given, another warrior arose, and placed himself in an 
attitude to speak. While his lips were yet in the act of parting, a 
low but fearful sound arose from the forest, and was immediately 
succeeded by a high, shrill yell, that was drawn out, until it equalled 
the longest and most plaintive howl of the wolf. The sudden and 
terrible interruption caused Duncan to start from his seat, uncon- 
scious of everything but the effect produced by so frightful a cry. 
At the same moment, the warriors glided in a body from the 



230 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

lodge, and the outer air was filled with loud shouts, that nearly 
drowned those awful sounds, which were still ringing beneath the 
arches of the woods. Unable to command himself any longer, 
the youth broke from the place, and presently stood in the centre 
of a disorderly throng, that included nearly everything having life, 
within the limits of the encampment. Men, women, and children ; 
the aged, the infirm, the active, and the strong, were alike abroad, 
some exclaiming aloud, others clapping their hands with a joy that 
seemed frantic, and all expressing their savage pleasure in some 
unexpected event. Though astounded, at first, by the uproar, 
Heyward was soon enabled to find its solution by the scene 
that followed. 

There yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit 
those bright openings among the tree-tops, where different paths 
left the clearing to enter the depths of the wilderness. Beneath 
one of them, a line of warriors issued from the woods, and ad- 
vanced slowly toward the dwellings. One in front bore a short 
pole, on which, as it afterward appeared, was suspended several 
human scalps. The startling sounds that Duncan had heard, were 
what the whites have not inappropriately called the " death hal- 
loo " ; and each repetition of the cry was intended to announce 
to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowledge of 
Heyward assisted him in the explanation ; and as he now knew 
that the interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return of a 
successful war-party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted in 
inward congratulation, for the opportune relief and insignificance 
it conferred on himself. 

When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges, 
the newly arrived warriors halted. Their plaintive and terrific cry, 
which was intended to represent equally the wailings of the dead 
and the triumph of the victors, had entirely ceased. One of their 
number now called aloud, in words that were far from appalling, 
though not more intelligible to those for whose ears they were 
intended, than their expressive yells. It would be difficult to con- 
vey a suitable idea of the savage ecstasy with which the news thus 
imparted was received. The whole encampment in a moment be- 
came a scene of the most violent bustle and commotion. The 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 231 

warriors drew their knives, and flourishing them, they arranged 
themselves in two lines, forming a lane that extended from the 
war-party to the lodges. The squaws seized clubs, axes, or what- 
ever weapon of offence first offered itself to their hands, and rushed 
eagerly to act their part in the cruel game that was at hand. Even 
the children would not be excluded ; but boys, little able to wield 
the instruments, tore the tomahawks from the belts of their fathers, 
and stole into the ranks, apt imitators of the savage traits exhibited 
by their parents. 

Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and a 
wary and aged squaw was occupied in firing as many as might 
serve to light the coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its power 
exceeded that of the parting day, and assisted to render objects at 
the same time more distinct and more hideous. The whole scene 
formed a striking picture, whose frame was composed of the dark 
and tall border of pines. The warriors just arrived were the most 
distant figures. A little in advance stood two men, who were ap- 
parently selected from the rest, as the principal actors in what was 
to follow. The light was not strong enough to render their features 
distinct, though it was quite evident that they were governed by 
very different emotions. While one stood erect and firm, prepared 
to meet his fate like a hero, the other bowed his head, as if palsied 
by terror or stricken with shame. The high-spirited Duncan felt 
a powerful impulse of admiration and pity toward the former, 
though no opportunity could offer to exhibit his generous emo- 
tions. He watched his slightest movement, however, with eager 
eyes ; and as he traced the fine outline of his admirably propor- 
tioned and active frame, he endeavored to persuade himself that 
if the powers of man, seconded by such noble resolution, could 
bear one harmless through so severe a trial, the youthful captive 
before him might hope for success in the hazardous race he was 
about to run. Insensibly the young man drew nigher to the swarthy 
lines of the Hurons, and scarcely breathed, so intense became his 
interest in the spectacle. Just then the signal yell was given, and 
the momentar)^ quiet which had preceded it was broken by a burst 
of cries, that far exceeded any before heard. The most abject of 
the two victims continued motionless ; but the other bounded from 



2 32 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the place at the cry with the activity and swiftness of a deer. 
Instead of rushing through the hostile lines, as had been expected, 
he just entered the dangerous defile, and before time was given 
for a single blow, turned short, and leaping the heads of a row 
of children, he gained at once the exterior and safer side of the 
formidable array. The artifice was answered by a hundred voices 
raised in imprecations ; and the whole of the excited multitude 
broke from their order, and spread themselves about the place in 
wild confusion. 

A dozen blazing piles now shed their lurid brightness on the 
place, which resembled some unhallowed and supernatural arena, 
in which malicious demons had assembled to act their bloody and 
lawless rites. The forms in the background looked like unearthly 
beings, gliding before the eye, and cleaving the air with frantic 
and unmeaning gestures ; while the savage passions of such as 
passed the flames, were rendered fearfully distinct by the gleams 
that shot athwart their inflamed visages. 

It will easily be understood, that amid such a concourse of 
vindictive enemies, no breathing time was allowed the fugitive. 
There was a single moment when it seemed as if he would have 
reached the forest, but the whole body of his captors threw them- 
selves before him, and drove him back into the centre of his 
relentless persecutors. Turning like a headed deer, he shot, with 
the swiftness of an arrow, through a pillar of forked flame, and 
passing the whole multitude harmless, he appeared on the opposite 
side of the clearing. Here too he was met and turned by a few 
of the older and more subtle of the Hurons. Once more he tried 
the throng, as if seeking safety in its blindness, and then several 
moments succeeded, during which Duncan believed the active 
and courageous young stranger was lost. 

Nothing could be distinguished but a dark mass of human forms 
tossed and involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming 
knives, and formidable clubs, appeared above them, but the blows 
were evidently given at random. The awful effect was heightened 
by the piercing shrieks of the women and the fierce yells of the 
warriors. Now and then Duncan caught a glimpse of a light form 
cleaving the air in some desperate bound, and he rather hoped 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 233 

than believed that the captive yet retained the command of his 
astonishing powers of activity. Suddenly the multitude rolled 
backward, and approached the spot where he himself stood. The 
heavy body in the rear pressed upon the women and children in 
front, and bore them to the earth. The stranger reappeared in the 
confusion. Human power could not, however, much longer endure 
so severe a trial. Of this the captive seemed conscious. Profiting 
by the momentary opening, he darted from among the warriors, 
and made a desperate, and what seemed to Duncan a final effort 
to gain the wood. As if aware that no danger was to be appre- 
hended from the young soldier, the fugitive nearly brushed his 
person in his flight. A tall and powerful Huron, who had hus- 
banded his forces, pressed close upon his heels, and with an uplifted 
arm menaced a fatal blow. Duncan thrust forth a foot, and the 
shock precipitated the eager savage headlong, many feet in advance 
of his intended victim. Thought itself is not quicker than was 
the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage ; he 
turned, gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, 
and at the next moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, 
and gazed around in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly lean- 
ing against a small painted post, which stood before the door of 
the principal lodge. 

Apprehensive that the part he had taken in the escape might 
prove fatal to himself, Duncan left the place without delay. He 
followed the crowd, which drew nigh the lodges, gloomy and sullen, 
like any other multitude that had been disappointed in an execu- 
tion. Curiosity, or perhaps a better feeling, induced him to approach 
the stranger. He found him, standing with one arm cast about 
the protecting post, and breathing thick and hard, after his exer- 
tions, but disdaining to permit a single sign of suffering to escape. 
His person was now protected by immemorial and sacred usage, 
until the tribe in council had deliberated and determined on his fate. 
It was not difficult, however, to foretell the result, if any presage 
could be drawn from the feelings of those who crowded the place. 

There was no term of abuse known to the Huron vocabulary 
that the disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the suc- 
cessful stranger. They flouted at his efforts, and told him, with 



234 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

bitter scoffs, that his feet were better than his hands ; and that 
he merited wings, while he knew not the use of an arrow or a 
knife. To all this the captive made no reply ; but was content to 
preserve an attitude in which dignity was singularly blended with 
disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure as by his good- 
fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were succeeded 
by shrill, piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw, who had 
taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles, made her way 
through the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front of the 
captive. The squalid and withered person of this hag might well 
have obtained for her the character of possessing more than human 
cunning. Throwing back her light vestment, she stretched forth 
her long skinny arm, in derision, and using the language of the 
Lenape, as more intelligible to the subject of her gibes, she 
commenced aloud : — 

" Look you, Delaware," she said, snapping her fingers in his 
face ; " your nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted 
to your hands than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; 
but if a bear, or a wild-cat or a serpent were born among you, ye 
would flee. The Huron girls shall make you petticoats, and we 
will find you a husband." 

A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which 
the soft and musical merriment of the younger females strangely 
chimed with the cracked voice of their older and more malignant 
companion. But the stranger was superior to all their efforts. His 
head was immovable ; nor did he betray the slightest consciousness 
that any were present, except when his haughty eye rolled toward 
the dusky forms of the warriors, who stalked in the background, 
silent and sullen observers of the scene. 

Infuriated at the self-command of the captive, the woman placed 
her arms akimbo ; and throwing herself into a posture of defiance, 
she broke out anew, in a torrent of words that no art of ours could 
commit successfully to paper. Her breath was, however, expended 
in vain ; for although distinguished in her nation as a proficient 
in the art of abuse, she was permitted to work herself into such a 
fury as actually to foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to 
vibrate in the motionless figure of the stranger. The effect of his 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 235 

indifference began to extend itself to the other spectators ; and a 
youngster, who was just quitting the condition of a boy, to enter 
the state of manhood, attempted to assist the termagant, by flour- 
ishing his tomahawk before their victim, and adding his empty 
boasts to the taunts of the woman. Then, indeed, the captive 
turned his face toward the hght, and looked down on the stripling 
with an expression that was superior to contempt. At the next 
moment he resumed his quiet and reclining attitude against the post. 
But the change of posture had permitted Duncan to exchange 
glances with the firm and piercing eyes of Uncas. 

Breathless with amazement, and heavily oppressed with the crit- 
ical situation of his friend, Heyward recoiled before the look, trem- 
bling lest its meaning might, in some unknown manner, hasten 
the prisoner's fate. There was not, however, any instant cause for 
such an apprehension. Just then a warrior forced his way into 
the exasperated crowd. Motioning the woman and children aside 
with a stern gesture, he took Uncas by the arm, and led him 
toward the door of the council lodge. Thither all the chiefs, and 
most of the distinguished warriors, followed; among whom the 
anxious Heyward found means to enter without attracting any 
dangerous attention to himself. 

A few minutes were consumed in disposing of those present in 
a manner suitable to their rank and influence in the tribe. An 
order very similar to that adopted in the preceding interview was 
observed ; the aged and superior chiefs occupying the area of the 
spacious apartment, within the powerful light of a glaring torch, 
while their juniors and inferiors were arranged in the background, 
presenting a dark outline of swarthy and marked visages. In the 
very centre of the lodge, immediately under an opening that ad- 
mitted the twinkling light of one or two stars, stood Uncas, calm, 
elevated, and collected. His high and haughty carriage was not 
lost on his captors, who often bent their looks on his person, with 
eyes which, while they lost none of their inflexibility of purpose, 
plainly betrayed their admiration of the stranger's daring. 

The case was different with the individual whom Duncan had 
observed to stand forth with his friend, previously to the desper- 
ate trial of speed ; and who, instead of joining in the chase, had 



2 36 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

remained, throughout its turbulent uproar, Hke a cringing statue, 
expressive of shame and disgrace. Though not a hand had been 
extended to greet him, nor yet an eye had condescended to watch 
his movements, he had also entered the lodge, as though impelled 
by a fate to whose decrees he submitted, seemingly, without a 
struggle. Heyward profited by the first opportunity to gaze in his 
face, secretly apprehensive he might find the features of another 
acquaintance ; but they proved to be those of a stranger, and, what 
was still more inexplicable, of one who bore all the distinctive 
marks of a Huron warrior. Instead of mingling with his tribe, 
however, he sat apart, a solitary being in a multitude, his form 
shrinking into a crouching and abject attitude, as if anxious to fill 
as little space as possible. When each individual had taken his 
proper station, and silence reigned in the place, the gray-haired 
chief already introduced to the reader spoke aloud, in the language 
of the Lenni Lenape. 

" Delaware," he said, " though one of a nation of women, you 
have proved yourself a man. I would give you food ; but he who 
eats with a Huron should become his friend. Rest in peace till 
the morning sun, when our last words shall be spoken." 

'" Seven nights, and as many summer days, have I fasted on 
the trail of the Hurons," Uncas coldly replied; "the children 
of the Lenape know how to travel the path of the just without 
lingering to eat." 

"Two of my young men are in pursuit of your companion," 
resumed the other, without appearing to regard the boast of his 
captive ; " when they get back, then will our wise men say to 
you, — ' live ' or ' die.' " 

" Has a Huron no ears ? " scornfully exclaimed Uncas ; " twice, 
since he has been your prisoner, has the Delaware heard a gun 
that he knows. Your young men will never come back ! " 

A short and sullen pause succeeded this bold assertion. Duncan, 
who understood the Mohican to allude to the fatal rifle of the scout, 
bent forward in earnest observation of the effect it might produce on 
the conquerors ; but the chief was content with simply retorting: — 

" If the Lenape are so skilful, why is one of their bravest 
warriors here .-' " 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 237 

" He followed in the steps of a flying coward, and fell into a 
snare. The cunning beaver may be caught." 

As Uncas thus replied, he pointed with his finger toward the 
solitary Huron, but without deigning to bestow any other notice 
on so unworthy an object. The words of the answer and the air 
of the speaker produced a strong sensation among his auditors. 
Every eye rolled sullenly toward the individual indicated by the 
simple gesture, and a low, threatening murmur passed through 
the crowd. The ominous sounds reached the outer door, and the 
women and children pressing into the throng, no gap had been 
left, between shoulder and shoulder, that was not now filled with 
the dark lineaments of some eager and curious human countenance. 

In the meantime, the more aged chiefs, in the centre, communed 
with each other in short and broken sentences. Not a word was 
uttered that did not convey the meaning of the speaker, in the sim- 
plest and most energetic form. Again, a long and deeply solemn 
pause took place. It was known, by all present, to be the grave 
precursor of a weighty and important judgment. They who com- 
posed the outer circle of faces were on tiptoe to gaze ; and even 
the culprit for an instant forgot his shame in a deeper emotion, 
and exposed his abject features, in order to cast an anxious and 
troubled glance at the dark assemblage of chiefs. The silence was 
finally broken by the aged warrior so often named. He arose 
from the earth, and moving past the immovable form of Uncas, 
placed himself in a dignified attitude before the offender. At that 
moment, the withered squaw already mentioned moved into the 
circle, in a slow, sidling sort of a dance, holding the torch, and 
muttering the indistinct words of what might have been a species 
of incantation. Though her presence was altogether an intrusion, 
it was unheeded. 

Approaching Uncas, she held the blazing brand in such a 
manner as to cast its red glare on his person, and to expose the 
slightest emotion of his countenance. The Mohican maintained 
his firm and haughty attitude ; and his eye so far from deigning 
to meet her inquisitive look, dwelt steadily on the distance, as 
though it penetrated the obstacles which impeded the view and 
looked into futurity. Satisfied with her examination, she left him, 



238 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

with a slight expression of pleasure, and proceeded to practise the 
same trying experiment on her delinquent countryman. 

The young Huron was in his war paint, and very little of a finely 
moulded form was concealed by his attire. The light rendered 
every limb and joint discernible, and Duncan turned away in 
horror when he saw they were writhing in irrepressible agony. 
The woman was commencing a low and plaintive howl at the sad 
and shameful spectacle, when the chief put forth his hand and 
gently pushed her aside. 

" Reed-that-bends," he said, addressing the young culprit by 
name, and in his proper language, "though the Great Spirit has 
made you pleasant to the eyes, it would have been better that you 
had not been born. Your tongue is loud in the village, but in 
battle it is still. None of my young men strike the tomahawk 
deeper into the war-post — none of them so lightly on the Yen- 
geese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they have 
never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called 
on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your 
name will never be mentioned again in your tribe — it is already 
forgotten." 

As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively 
between each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to 
the other's rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled 
in its lineaments. His eye, which was contracted with inward 
anguish, gleamed on the persons of those whose breath was his 
fame ; and the latter emotion for an instant predominated. He 
arose to his feet, and baring his bosom, looked steadily on the 
keen, glittering knife, that was already upheld by his inexorable 
judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his heart he even smiled, 
as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he had antici- 
pated, and fell heavily on his face, at the feet of the rigid and 
unyielding form of Uncas. 

The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to 
the earth, and buried everything in darkness. The whole shudder- 
ing group of spectators glided from the lodge like troubled sprites ; 
and Duncan thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the 
victim of an Indian judgment had now become its only tenants. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 239 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

[Born at Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794; died at New York 
City, June 12, 1878] 

THANATOPSIS 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over the spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall. 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 
Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix for ever with the elements. 
To be a brother to the insensible rock 
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 



240 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness. 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound. 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there : 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 
Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 24 1 

The youth in hfe's green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid. 
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side. 
By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night. 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

TO A WATERFOWL 

Whither, midst falling dew. 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide. 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean-side ? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 



242 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 



TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN 

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night, 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed. 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and com'st alone. 
When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
And frost and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near his end. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 243 

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky, 
Blue — blue — as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 



I would that thus, when I shall see 
The hour of death draw near to me, 
Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
May look to heaven as I depart. 



THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, 

Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and 

sere. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead ; 
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread ; 
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay. 
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang 

and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? 
Alas ! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers 
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. 
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain 
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. 

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, 
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow ; 
But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood. 
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood. 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague 

on men. 
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, 

and glen. 



244 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And now, when comes the cahn mild day, as still such days will 

come. 
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home ; 
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees 

are still, 
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill. 
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he 

bore. 
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. 

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, 
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. 
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf, 
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief : 
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, 
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. 

O FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS 

O fairest of the rural maids ! 
Thy birth was in the forest shades ; 
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, 
Were all that met thine infant eye. 

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child. 
Were ever in the sylvan wild ; 
And all the beauty of the place 
Is in thy heart and on thy face. 

The twilight of the trees and rocks 
Is in the light shade of thy locks ; 
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves . 
Its playful way among the leaves. 

Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene 
And silent waters heaven is seen ; 
Their lashes are the herbs that look 
On their young figures in the brook. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 245 

The forest depths, by foot unpressed, 
Are not more sinless than thy breast ; 
The holy peace, that fills the air 
Of those calm solitudes, is there. 



SONG OF MARION'S MEN 

Our band is few but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 
Our fortress is the good greenwood, 

Our tent the cypress-tree : 
We know the forest round us, 

As seamen know the sea. 
We know its walls of thorny vines, 

Its glades of reedy grass, 
Its safe and silent islands 

Within the dark morass. 

Woe to the English soldiery 

That little dread us near ! 
On them shall light at midnight 

A strange and sudden fear : 
When, waking to their tents on fire 

They grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us 

Are beat to earth again ; 
And they who fly in terror deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

Then sweet the hour that brings release 
From danger and from toil : 

We talk the battle over. 

And share the battle's spoil. 



246 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The woodland rings with laugh and shout, 

As if a hunt were up, 
And woodland flowers are gathered 

To crown the soldier's cup. 
With merry songs we mock the wind 

That in the pine-top grieves. 
And slumber long and sweetly 

On beds of oaken leaves. 

Well knows the fair and friendly moon 

The band that Marion leads — 
The glitter of their rifles. 

The scampering of their steeds. 
'T is life to guide the fiery barb 

Across the moonlight plain ; 
'T is life to feel the night-wind 

That lifts the tossing mane. 
^ A moment in the British camp — 

A moment — and away 
Back to the pathless forest 

Before the peep of day. 

Grave men there are by broad Santee, 

Grave men with hoary hairs ; 
Their hearts are all with Marion, 

For Marion are their prayers. 
And lovely ladies greet our band 

With kindliest welcoming, 
With smiles like those of summer. 

And tears like those of spring. 
For them we wear these trusty arms. 

And lay them down no more 
Till we have driven the Briton, 

Forever, from our shore. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 247 

THE YELLOW VIOLET 

When beechen buds begin to swell, 

And woods the bluebird's warble know, 

The yellow violet's modest bell 

Peeps from the last year's leaves below. 

Ere russet fields their green resume. 

Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare. 
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume 

Alone is in the virgin air. 

Of all her train, the hands of Spring 

First plant thee in the watery mould, 
And I have seen thee blossoming 

Beside the snow-bank's edges cold. 

Thy parent sun, who bade thee view 

Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip. 
Has bathed thee in his own bright hue. 

And streaked with jet thy glowing lip. 

Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, 

And earthward bent thy gentle eye. 
Unapt the passing view to meet, 

When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh. 

Oft, in the sunless April day. 

Thy early smile has stayed my walk ; 
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May, 

I passed thee on thy humble stalk. 

So they, who climb to wealth, forget 

The friends in darker fortunes tried. 
I copied them — but I regret 

That I should ape the ways of pride. 



248 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And when again the genial hour 
Awakes the painted tribes of hght, 

I '11 not o'erlook the modest flower 
That made the woods of April bright. 

THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, 
Gentle and merciful and just ! 

Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 
The sword of power, a nation's trust ! 

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 
Amid the awe that hushes all. 

And speak the anguish of a land 
That shook with horror at thy fall. 

Thy task is done ; the bond are free : 
We bear thee to an honored grave, 

Whose proudest monument shall be 
The broken fetters of the slave. 

Pure was thy life ; its bloody close 

Hath placed thee with the sons of light. 

Among the noble host of those 

Who perished in the cause of Right. 

ROBERT OF LINCOLN 

Merrily swinging on brier and weed. 
Near to the nest of his little dame. 
Over the mountain-side or mead, 

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Snug and safe is that nest of ours. 
Hidden among the summer flowers. 
Chee, chee, chee. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 249 

Robert of Lincolrt is gayly drest, 

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat ; 
White are his shoulders and white his crest. 
Hear him call in his merry note : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Look, what a nice new coat is mine, 
Sure there was never a bird so fine. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife. 

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, 
Passing at home a patient life, 

Broods in the grass while her husband sings : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
.Spink, spank, spink ; 
Brood, kind creature ; you need not fear 
Thieves and robbers while I am here. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Modest and shy as a nun is she ; 

One weak chirp is her only note. 
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, 
Pouring boasts from his little throat : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Never was I afraid of man ; 
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can ! 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Six white eggs on a bed of hay. 

Flecked with purple, a pretty sight ! 
There as the mother sits all day, 

Robert is singing with all his might : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 



2 50 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Nice good wife, that never goes out, 
Keeping house while I frolic about. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Soon as the little ones chip the shell, 

Six wide mouths are open for food ; 
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well, 
Gathering seeds for the hungry brood. 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
This new life is likely to be 
Hard for a gay young fellow like me. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln at length is made 

Sober with work, and silent with care ; 
Off is his holiday garment laid. 
Half forgotten that merry air : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Nobody knows but my mate and I 
Where our nest and our nestlings lie. 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Summer wanes ; the children are grown ; 

Fun and frolic no more he knows ; 
Robert of Lincoln 's a humdrum crone ; 
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
When you can pipe that merry old strain, 
Robert of Lincoln, come back again. 
Chee, chee, chee. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 251 

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE 

Come, let us plant the apple-tree. 
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade ; 
Wide let its hollow bed be made ; 
There gently lay the roots, and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care, 

And press it o'er them tenderly. 
As, round the sleeping infant's feet, 
We softly fold the cradle-sheet ; 

So plant we the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Buds, which the breath of summer days 
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays ; 
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast, 
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest ; 

We plant, upon the sunny lea, 
A shadow for the noontide hour, 
A shelter from the summer shower, 

When we plant the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs 
To load the May-wind's restless wings. 
When, from the orchard-row, he pours 
Its fragrance through our open doors ; 

A world of blossoms for the bee. 
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room. 
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, 

We plant with the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 
And redden in the August noon. 
And drop, when gentle airs come by. 
That fan the blue September sky. 



252 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

While children come, with cries of glee, 
And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass, 

At the foot of the apple-tree. 

And when, above this apple-tree, 
The winter stars are quivering bright, 
And winds go howling through the night, 
Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, 
Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth, 

And guests in prouder homes shall see, 
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine 
And golden orange of the line, 

The fruit of the apple-tree. 

The fruitage of this apple-tree 
Winds and our flag of stripe and star 
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar. 
Where men shall wonder at the view, 
And ask in what fair groves they grew ; 

And sojourners beyond the sea 
Shall think of childhood's careless day. 
And long, long hours of summer play, 

In the shade of the apple-tree. 

Each year shall give this apple-tree 
A broader flush of roseate bloom, 
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom. 
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, 
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower. 

The years shall come and pass, but we 
Shall hear no longer, where we lie, 
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh. 

In the boughs of the apple-tree. 

And time shall waste this apple-tree. 
Oh, when its aged branches throw 
Thin shadows on the ground below, 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 253 

Shall fraud and force and iron will 
Oppress the weak and helpless still ? 

What shall the tasks of mercy be, 
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears 
Of those who live when length of years 

Is wasting this little apple-tree ? 

" Who planted this old apple-tree ? " 
The children of that distant day 
Thus to some aged man shall say ; 
And, gazing on its mossy stem. 
The gray-haired man shall answer them : 

" A poet of the land was he. 
Born in the rude but good old times ; 
'T is said he made some quaint old rhymes, 

On planting the apple-tree." 

THE MAY SUN SHEDS AN AMBER LIGHT 

The May sun sheds an amber light 
On new-leaved woods and lawns between ; 
But she, who with a smile more bright. 
Welcomed and watched the springing green. 

Is in her grave. 

Low in her grave. 

The fair white blossoms of the wood 
In groups beside the pathway stand ; 
But one, the gentle and the good. 
Who cropped them with a fairer hand, 

Is in her grave. 

Low in her grave. 

Upon the woodland's morning airs 
The small birds' mingled notes are flung ; 
But she, whose voice, more sweet than theirs, 
Once bade me listen while they sung, 

Is in her grave. 

Low in her grave. 



2 54 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

That music of the early year 
Brings tears of anguish to my eyes ; 
My heart aches when the flowers appear ; 
For then I think of her who Hes 

Within her grave, 

Low in her grave. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 
[Born at Boston, January 19, i8og; died at Baltimore, October 7, 1849] 

THE RAVEN 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, 
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, — 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
" 'T is some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door : 
Only this and nothing more." 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, 
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
Eagerly I wished the morrow ; — vainly I had sought to borrow 
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore, 
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore ; — 
Nameless here for evermore. 

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating 
" 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, — 
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ; — 
This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
" Sir," said I, " or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 255 

That I scarce was sure I heard you" — here I opened wide the 
door ; — 

Darkness there and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, 

fearing, 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before ; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, " Lenore ? " 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, " Lenore ! " 
Merely this and nothing more. 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. 
" Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window lattice ; 
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore — 
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore ; — 
'T is the wind and nothing more." 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. 

Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopped or stayed 

he ; 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door, — 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door : 
Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling 

By the grave and §tern decorum of the countenance it wore, — 

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure 

no craven. 
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly 

shore : 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore ! " 
Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly. 
Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore ; 



256 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

For we cannot help agreeing that no hving human being 
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door, — 
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, 
With such name as " Nevermore." 

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only 
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour, 
Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered, 
Till I scarcely more than muttered, — ' ' Other friends have flown 

before ; 
On the morrow lie will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before." 
Then the bird said, " Nevermore." 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
" Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock and store, 
Caught from some unhappy master whom' unmerciful Disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore : 
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 
Of ' Never — ^ nevermore.' " 

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling. 

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and 

door ; 
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore. 
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore 
Meant in croaking '" Nevermore." 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core ; 
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er. 
But whose velvet violet lining \vith the lamp-light gloating o'er 
She shall press, ah, nevermore ! 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen 

censer 
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 257 

"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee — by these angels he 

hath sent thee 
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore ! 
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore ! " 
Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

"' Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! prophet stilf, if bird or devil ! 
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here 

ashore. 
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted — 
On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore : 
Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell me, I 

implore ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

" Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil — prophet still, if bird or devil ! 
By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore : 
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore ! " 
Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I shrieked, 

upstarting : 
" Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore ! 
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! 
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! quit the bust above my door ! 
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my 

door ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore," 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ; 

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the 

floor : 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
Shall be lifted — nevermore ! 



258 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

ANNABEL LEE 

It was many and many a year ago, 

In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 

Than to love and be loved by me. 

I was a child and she was a child. 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
But we loved with a love that was more than love, 

I and my Annabel Lee ; 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago. 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
So that her highborn kinsman came 

And bore her away from me. 
To shut her up in a sepulcher 

In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven. 

Went envying her and me ; 
Yes ! that was the reason {as all men know. 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night. 

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we, 

Of many far wiser than we ; 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 

Nor the demons down under the sea. 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 259 

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride, 

In her sepulcher there by the sea, 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 



THE HAUNTED PALACE 

In the greenest of our valleys 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Radiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion, 

It stood there ; 
Never seraph spread a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair. 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 

On its roof did float and flow 
(This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago), 
And every gentle air that dallied. 

In that sweet day. 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 

Wanderers in that happy valley 

Through two luminous windows saw 
Spirits moving musically, 

To a lute's well-tuned law, 
Round about a throne where, sitting, 

(Porphyrogene !) 
In state his glory well befitting, 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 



26o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing 

Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 

And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing, 
In voices of surpassing beauty. 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 

But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 

Assailed the monarch's high estate ; 
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow 

Shall dawn upon him desolate !) 
And round about his home the glory 

That blushed and bloomed. 
Is but a dim-remembered story 

Of the old time entombed. 

And travelers, now, within that valley, 

Through the red-litten windows see 
Vast forms, that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody ; 
While, like a ghastly rapid river, 

Through the pale door 
A hideous throng rush out forever. 

And laugh — but smile no more. 



THE BELLS 

Hear the sledges with the bells, 
Silver bells ! 
What a world of merriment their melody foretells ! 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. 

In the icy air of night ! 
While the stars, that oversprinkle 
All the heavens, seem to twinkle 
With a crystalline delight ; 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 261 

Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme. 
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
From the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, bells — 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 

Hear the mellow wedding bells, 
Golden bells ! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! 
Through the balmy air of night 
How they ring out their delight ! 
From the molten-golden notes, 

And all in tune, 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
On the moon ! 
Oh, from out the sounding cells. 
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells ! 
How it swells ! 
How it dwells 
On the Future ! how it tells 
Of the rapture that impels 
To the swinging and the ringing 

Of the bells, bells, bells. 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells ! 

Hear the loud alarum bells — 
Brazen bells ! 
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells ! 
In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their affright ! 
Too much horrified to speak. 
They can only shriek, shriek, 
Out of tune. 



262 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
With a desperate desire. 
And a resolute endeavor 
Now — now to sit or never. 
By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
Oh, the bells, bells, bells ! 
What a tale their terror tells 
Of Despair ! 
How they clang, and clash, and roar ! 
What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air ! 
Yet the ear it fully knows, 
By the twanging. 

And the clanging, ^ 

How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells. 
In the jangling. 
And the wrangling. 
How the danger sinks and swells. 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells - 
Of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, bells — 
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells ! 

Hear the tolling of the bells — 
Iron bells ! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels ! 
In the silence of the night, 
How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone ! 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 263 

And the people — ah, the people — 
They that dwell up in the steeple, 

All alone, 
And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 

In that muffled monotone. 
Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone — 
They are neither man nor woman — 
They are neither brute nor human — 
They are Ghouls : 
And their king it is who tolls ; 
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
Rolls 
A paean from the bells ! 
And his merry bosom swells 

With the paean of the bells ! 
And he dances, and he yells ; 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the pasan of the bells — 
Of the bells : 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the throbbing of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 

To the sobbing of the bells ; 
Keeping, time, time, time. 

As he knells, knells, knells. 
In a happy Runic rhyme. 

To the rolling of the bells, 
Of the bells, bells, bells : 
To the tolling of the bells, 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells. 

Bells, bells, bells — 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 



264 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



TO HELEN 



Helen, thy beauty is to me 

Like those Nicean barks of yore. 

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore 
To his own native shore. 

On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
To the glory that was Greece, 

And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Lo ! in yon brilliant window niche 
How statue-like I see thee stand, 
The agate lamp within thy hand ! 

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 
Are Holy- Land ! 



TO ONE IN PARADISE 

Thou wast all that to me, love, 
For which my soul did pine — 

A green isle in the sea, love, 
A fountain and a shrine. 

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 
And all the flowers were mine. 

Ah, dream too bright to last ! 

Ah, starry Hope ! that didst arise 
But to be overcast ! 

A voice from out the Future cries, 
" On ! on ! " — but o'er the Past 

(Dim gulf !) my spirit hovering lies 
Mute, motionless, aghast ! 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 265 

For, alas ! alas ! with me 

The light of Life is o'er ! 
" No more — no more — no more — " 
(Such language holds the solemn sea 

To the sands upon the shore) 
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, 

Or the stricken eagle soar ! 

And all my days are trances, 

And all my nightly dreams 
Are where thy dark eye glances, 

And where thy footstep gleams — 
In what ethereal dances, 

By what eternal streams. 

ISRAFEL 

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell 

'" Whose heart-strings are a lute ; " 
None sing so wildly well 
As the angel Israfel, 
And the giddy stars (so legends tell). 
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell 

Of his voice, all mute. 

Tottering above 

In her highest noon, 

The enamored moon 
Blushes with love. 

While, to listen, the red levin 

(With the rapid Pleiads, even, 

Which were seven). 

Pauses in heaven. 

And they say (the starry choir 

And the other listening things) 
That Israfeli's fire 
Is owing to that lyre 



266 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

By which he sits and sings, — 
The trembhng hving wire 
Of those unusual strings. 

But the skies that angel trod, 

Where deep thoughts are a duty, 

Where Love 's a grown-up God, 

Where the Houri glances are 
Imbued with all the beauty 

Which we worship in a star. 

Therefore thou art not wrong, 

Israfeli, who despisest 
An unimpassioned song ; 
To thee the laurels belong. 

Best bard, because the wisest : 
Merrily live, and long ! 

The ecstasies above 

With thy burning measures suit : 

Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love. 
With the fervor of thy lute : 
Well may the stars be mute ! 

Yes, Heaven is thine ; but this 
Is a world of sweets and sours ; 
Our flowers are merely — flowers. 

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss 
Is the sunshine of ours. 

If I could dwell 
Where Israfel 

Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
He might not sing so wildly well 

A mortal melody. 
While a bolder note than this might swell 

From my lyre within the sky. 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 267 

THE COLISEUM 

Type of the antique Rome ! Rich rehquary 
Of lofty contemplation left to Time 
By buried centuries of pomp and power ! 
At length — at length — after so many days 
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, 
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie) 
I kneel, an altered and an humble man. 
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within 
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory ! 

Vastness ! and Age ! and Memories of Eld ! 
Silence ! and Desolation ! and Dim Night ! 
I feel thee now — I feel ye in your strength — 
O spells more sure than e'er Judasan king 
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane ! 
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldees 
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars ! 

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls ! 

Here where the mimic eagle glared in gold, 

A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat ! 

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair 

Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle ! 

Here, where on gilded throne the monarch lolled, 

Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home. 

Lit by the wan light of the horned moon. 

The swift and silent lizard of the stones ! 

But stay ! these walls — these ivy-clad arcades — 

These mouldering plinths — these sad and blackened shafts — 

These vague entablatures — this crumbling frieze — 

These shattered cornices — this wreck — this ruin — 

These stones — alas ! these gray stones — are they all — 

All of the famed, and the colossal left 

By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me ? 



268 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

'" Not all " — the Echoes answer me — " not all ! 

Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever 

From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise. 

As melody from Memnon to the Sun, 

We rule the hearts of mightiest men — we rule 

With a despotic sway all giant minds. 

We are not impotent — we pallid stones. 

Not all our power is gone — not all our fame — 

Not all the magic of our high renown — 

Not all the wonder that encircles us — 

Not all the mysteries that in us lie — 

Not all the memories that hang upon 

And cling around about us as a garment, 

Clothing us in a robe of more than glory." 

THE CONQUEROR WORM 

Lo ! 't is a gala night 

Within the lonesome latter years ! 
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight 

In veils, and drowned in tears, 
Sits in a theatre, to see 

A play of hopes and fears, 
While the orchestra breathes fitfully 

The music of the spheres. 

Mimes, in the form of God on high, 

Mutter and mumble low, 
And hither and thither fly — 

Mere puppets they, who come and go 
At bidding of vast formless things 

That shift the scenery to and fro. 
Flapping from out their Condor wings 

Invisible Woe ! 

That motley drama — oh, be sure 

It shall not be forgot ! 
With its Phantom chased forevermore, 

By a crowd that seize it not, 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 269 

Through a circle that ever returneth in 

To the self-same spot, 
And much of Madness, and more of Sin, 

And Horror the soul of the plot. 

But see, amid the mimic rout 

A crawling shape intrude ! 
A blood-red thing that writhes from out 

The scenic solitude ! 
It writhes ! — it writhes ! — with mortal pangs 

The mimes become its food, 
And the angels sob at vermin fangs 

In human gore imbued. 

Out — out are the lights — out all ! 

And, over each quivering form. 
The curtain, a funeral pall. 

Comes down with the rush of a storm. 
And the angels, all pallid and wan. 

Uprising, unveiling, affirm 
That the play is the tragedy, " Man," 

And its hero the Conqueror Worm. 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 

The " Red Death " had long devastated the country. No pesti- 
lence had ever been so fatal or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar 
and its seal, — the redness and the horror of blood. There were 
sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at 
the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body, and 
especially upon the face, of the victim were the pest ban which 
shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow- 
men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the 
disease were the incidents of half an hour. 

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. 
When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his 
presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among 
the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the 



270 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an ex- 
tensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own 
eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. 
This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought 
furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved 
to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses 
of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provi- 
sioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance 
to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the 
mean time it was folly to grieve or to think. The prince had pro- 
vided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there 
were improvisatori, there were ballet dancers, there were musicians, 
there was beauty, there was wine. All these and security were 
within. Without was the " Red Death." 

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, 
and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince 
Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the 
most unusual magnificence. 

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me 
tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven, — an 
imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long 
and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the 
walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely 
impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been 
expected from the prince's love of the bizarre. The apartments 
were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more 
than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty 
yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the 
middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out 
upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. 
These windows were of stained glass, whose color varied in accord- 
ance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into 
which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for ex- 
ample, in blue, and vividly blue were its windows. The second 
chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the 
panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were 
the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange, 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 271 

the fifth with white, the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment 
was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over 
the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet 
of the same material and hue. But, in this chamber only, the color 
of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes 
here were scarlet, — a deep blood-color. Now in no one of the seven 
apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum amid the profusion 
of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from 
the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or 
candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that fol- 
lowed the suite there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, 
bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted 
glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced 
a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western 
or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the 
dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the 
extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of 
those who entered that there were few of the company bold enough 
to set foot within its precincts at all. 

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western 
wall a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with 
a dull, heavy, monotonous clang ; and, when the minute-hand made 
the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came 
from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and 
loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note 
and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the 
orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their perform- 
ance, to hearken to the sound ; and thus the waltzers perforce 
ceased their evolutions ; and there was a brief disconcert of the 
whole gay company ; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, 
it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and 
sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie 
or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter 
at once pervaded the assembly ; the musicians looked at each other 
and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whis- 
pering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock 
should produce in them no similar emotion ; and then, after the 



272 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hun- 
dred seconds of the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming 
of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness 
and meditation as before. 

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. 
The tastes of the prince were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors 
and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans 
were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. 
There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers 
felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch 
him to be sure that he was not. 

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of 
the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete ; and it was 
his own guiding taste which had given character to the masquer- 
aders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and 
glitter and piquancy and phantasm — much of what has been since 
seen in Hernani. There were arabesque figures with unsuited 
limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the 
madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the 
wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a 
little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the 
seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And 
these — the dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the 
rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as 
the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock 
which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, 
all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams 
are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die 
away, — they have endured but an instant, — and a light, half-sub- 
dued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the 
music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more mer- 
rily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through 
which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which 
lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the mask- 
ers who venture : for the night is waning away, and there flows a 
ruddier light through the blood-colored panes ; and the blackness of 
the sable drapery appalls ; and, to him whose foot falls upon the 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 273 

sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled 
peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who 
indulge in the more remote gayeties of the other apartments. 

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them 
beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, 
until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon 
the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told ; and the 
evolutions of the waltzers were quieted ; and there was an uneasy 
cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes 
to be sounded by the bell of the clock ; and thus it happened, per- 
haps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the medi- 
tations of the thoughtful among those who reveled. And thus too 
it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime 
had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the 
crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of 
a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single 
individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having 
spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the 
whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation 
and surprise, — then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. 

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may 
well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited 
such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night 
was nearly unlimited ; but the figure in question had out-Heroded 
Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite 
decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless 
which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly 
lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of 
which no jests can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed 
now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger 
neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, 
and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. 
The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to re- 
semble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scru- 
tiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all 
this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers 
around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type 



274 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood; and his 
broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with 
the scarlet horror. 

When the eyes of Prince Prosper© fell upon this spectral image 
(which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sus- 
tain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen 
to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong shudder either 
of terror or distaste ; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. 

"Who dares.?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who 
stood near him, — "who dares insult us with this blasphemous 
mockery } Seize him and unmask him that we may know whom 
we have to hang at sunrise from the battlements ! " 

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince 
Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the 
seven rooms loudly and clearly ; for the prince was a bold and 
robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of 
his hand. 

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group 
of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a 
slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the in- 
truder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with 
deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. 
But, from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumption 
of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found 
none who put forth hand to seize him, so that, unimpeded, he 
passed within a yard of the prince's person ; and, while the vast 
assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the 
rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the 
same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from 
the first, through the blue chamber to the purple — through the 
purple to the green — through the green to the orange — through 
this again to the white — and even thence to the violet, ere a de- 
cided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, how- 
ever, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame 
of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six 
chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror 
that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had 



EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD 275 

approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of 
the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity 
of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pur- 
suer. There was a sharp cry — and the dagger dropped gleaming 
upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell pros- 
trate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild 
courage of despair, a throng of the revelers at once threw them- 
selves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose 
tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the 
ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cere- 
ments and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent 
a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. 

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. 
He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped 
the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died 
each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the 
ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the 
flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and 
the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. 



THE LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 
DANIEL WEBSTER 

[Born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January i8, 1782; died at Marshfield, 
Massachusetts, October 24, 1852] 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER 
STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT AT CHARLES- 
TOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, JUNE 17, 1825 (EXTRACTS) 

This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the 
feehng which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human 
faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of 
a common gratitude turned reverently to heaven in this spacious 
temple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and 
the purpose of our assembling have made a deep impression on 
our hearts. 

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the 
mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which 
agitate us here. We are among ttte sepulchres of our fathers. We 
are on ground distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and 
the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain 
date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown 
spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we our- 
selves had never been born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have 
been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its 
light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the 
eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in 
what may be called the early age of this great continent ; and we 
know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and 
suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable 
train of great events ; we know that our own fortunes have been 
happily cast ; and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved 

276 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD . 277 

by the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny 
before many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we 
should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men 
on earth. 

We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, without 
feeling something of a personal interest in the event ; without 
being reminded how much it has affected our own fortunes and 
our own existence. It would be still more unnatural for us, there- 
fore, than for others, to contemplate with unaffected minds that 
interesting, I may say that most touching and pathetic scene, when 
the great discoverer of America stood on the deck of his shattered 
bark, the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping ; 
tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows 
of alternate hope and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts ; 
extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his anx- 
ious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a moment of 
rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of the 
unknown world. 

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, and 
therefore still more interesting to our feelings and affections, is 
the settlement of our own country by colonists from England. We 
cherish every memorial of these worthy ancestors ; we celebrate 
their patience and fortitude ; we admire their daring enterprise ; 
we teach our children to venerate their piety ; and we are justly 
proud of being descended from men who have set the world an 
example of founding civil institutions on the great and united prin- 
ciples of human freedom and human knowledge. To us, their chil- 
dren, the story of their labors and sufferings can never be without 
interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth, 
while the sea continues to wash it ; nor will our brethren in another 
early and ancient Colony forget the place of its first establishment, 
till their river shall cease to flow by it. No vigor of youth, no 
maturity of manhood, will lead the nation to forget the spots where 
its infancy was cradled and defended. 

But the great event in the history of the continent, which we 
are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, 
at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American 



278 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, 
of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought 
together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration 
of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and 
patriotic devotion. 

The Society whose organ I am was formed for the purpose of 
rearing some honorable and durable monument to the memory of 
the early friends of American Independence. They have thought 
that for this object no time could be more propitious than the 
present prosperous and peaceful period ; that no place could claim 
preference over this memorable spot ; and that no day could be 
more auspicious to the undertaking, than the anniversary of the 
battle which was here fought. The foundation of that monument 
we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with 
prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this 
cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be 
prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising 
high in massive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain 
as long as Heaven permits the works of man to last, a fit emblem, 
both of the events in memory of which it is raised, and of the 
gratitude of those who have reared it. 

********** 

We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so 
important that they might crowd and distinguish centuries are, in 
our times, compressed within the compass of a single life. When 
has it happened that history has had so much to record, in the 
same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 1775 .'* Our own 
revolution, which, under other circumstances, might itself have been 
expected to occasion a war of half a century, has been achieved ; 
twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected ; and a gen- 
eral government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, 
so practical, that we might well wonder its establishment should 
have been accomplished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder 
that it should have been established at all. Two or three millions 
of people have been augmented to twelve, the great forests of the 
West prostrated beneath the arm of successful industry, and the 
dwellers on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi become 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 279 

the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who cultivate the hills of 
New England. We have a commerce that leaves no sea unexplored ; 
navies which take no law from superior force ; revenues adequate 
to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation ; and 
peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect. 

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty 
revolution, which, while it has been felt in the individual condition 
and happiness of almost every man, has shaken to the centre her 
political fabric, and dashed against one another thrones which had 
stood tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, our own example 
has been followed, and colonies have sprung up to be nations. 
Unaccustomed sounds of liberty and free government have reached 
us from beyond the track of the sun ; and at this moment the 
dominion of European power in this continent, from the place 
where we stand to the south pole, is annihilated for ever. 

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, such has been 
the general progress of knowledge, such the improvement in 
legislation, in commerce, in the arts, in letters, and, above all, in 
liberal ideas and the general spirit of the age, that the whole world 
seems changed. 

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of the 
things -which have happened since the day of the battle of Bunker 
Hill, we are but fifty years removed from it ; and we now stand 
here to enjoy all the blessings of our own condition, and to look 
abroad on the brightened prospects of the world, while we still 
have among us some of those who were active agents in the 
scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from every quarter of 
New England, to visit once more, and under circumstances so 
affecting, I had almost said so overwhelming, this renowned 
theatre of their courage and patriotism. 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a former 
generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, 
that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you 
stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your 
neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. 
Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed over your 
heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; but all else how 



28o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no 
mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charles- 
town. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying ; the 
impetuous charge ; the steady and successful repulse ; the loud 
call to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to 
repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly 
bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war 
and death ; — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them 
no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its 
towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and chil- 
dren and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with 
unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented 
you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out 
to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud 
ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of 
this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means 
of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction 
and defence. All is peace ; and God has granted you this sight of 
your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has 
allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic 
toils ; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet 
you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name 
of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! 

But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword have 
thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, 
Pomeroy, Bridge ! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this 
broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to 
your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright 
example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the 
common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know 
that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. 
You lived to see your country's independence established, and to 
sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw 
arise the light of Peace, like 

" another morn, 
Risen on mid-noon ; " 

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 281 

But, ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great cause ! 
Him! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! 
the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our mili- 
tary bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable 
fire of his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by Providence in the hour 
of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; falling ere he saw the 
star of his country rise ; pouring out his generous blood like water, 
before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of 
bondage ! — how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the 
utterance of thy name ! Our poor work may perish ; but thine 
shall endure ! This monument may moulder away ; the solid 
ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea ; but 
thy memory shall not fail ! Wheresoever among men a heart shall 
be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its 
aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit. 

But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to con- 
fine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who 
hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the 
happiness to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy repre- 
sentation of the survivors of the whole Revolutionary army. 

Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. 
You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, 
from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans 
OF HALF A CENTURY ! when in your youthful days you put every 
thing at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, 
and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch 
onward to an hour like this ! At a period to which you could not 
reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national pros- 
perity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met 
here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the 
overflowings of a universal gratitude. 

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform 
me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult 
of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, 
as well as the persons of the living, present themselves before you. 
The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father 
of all mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them ! 



282 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when 
you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so 
often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exul- 
tation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which your 
young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is 
filled ; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a 
name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a 
praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sym- 
pathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the 
improved condition of mankind ! 

********** 

The 1 7th of June saw the four New England Colonies standing 
here, side by side, to triumph or to fall together ; and there was 
with them from that moment to the end of the war, what I hope 
will remain with them forever, — one cause, one country, one heart. 

The battle of Bunker Hill was attended with the most impor- 
tant effects beyond its immediate results as a military engagement. 
It created at once a state of open, public war. There could now be 
no longer a question of proceeding against individuals, as guilty of 
treason or rebellion. That fearful crisis was past. The appeal lay 
to the sword, and the only question was, whether the spirit and the 
resources of the people would hold out till the object should be 
accomplished. Nor were its general consequences confined to our 
own country. The previous proceedings of the Colonies, their 
appeals, resolutions, and addresses, had made their cause known 
to Europe. Without boasting, we may say, that in no age or 
country has the public cause been maintained with more force of 
argument, more power of illustration, or more of that persuasion 
which excited feeling and elevated principle can alone bestow, 
than the Revolutionary state papers exhibit. These papers will 
forever deserve to be studied, not only for the spirit which they 
breathe, but for the ability with which they were written. 

To this able vindication of their cause, the Colonies had now 
added a practical and severe proof of their own true devotion to 
it, and given evidence also of the power which they could bring 
to its support. All now saw, that if America fell, she would not 
fall without a struggle. Men felt sympathy and regard, as well as 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 283 

surprise, when they beheld these infant states, remote, unknown, 
unaided, encounter the power of England, and, in the first con- 
siderable battle, leave more of their enemies dead on the field, in 
proportion to the number of combatants, than had been recently 
known to fall in the wars of Europe. 

Information of these events, circulating throughout the world, 
at length reached the ears of one who now hears me. He has 
not forgotten the emotion which the fame of Bunker Hill, and 
the name of Warren, excited in his youthful breast. 

Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establishment of 
great public principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distin- 
guished dead. The occasion is too severe for eulogy of the living. 
But, Sir, your interesting relation to this country, the peculiar cir- 
cumstances which surround you and surround us, call on me to 
express the happiness which we derive from your presence and 
aid in this solemn commemoration. 

Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of devotion will 
you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary 
life ! You are connected with both hemispheres and with two 
generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of 
liberty should be conducted, through you, from the New World 
to the Old ; and we, who are now here to perform this duty of 
patriotism, have all of us long ago received it in charge from our 
fathers to cherish your name and your virtues. You will account 
it an instance of your good fortune, Sir, that you crossed the seas 
to visit us at a time which enables you to be present at this solem- 
nity. You now behold the field, the renown of which reached you 
in the heart of France, and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. 
You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by the incredible 
diligence of Prescott ; defended, to the last extremity, by his lion- 
hearted valor ; and within which the corner-stone of our monument 
has now taken its position. You see where Warren fell, and where 
Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots fell 
with him. Those who survived that day, and whose lives have 
been prolonged to the present hour, are now around you. Some 
of them you have known in the trying scenes of the war. Be- 
hold ! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you. 



284 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Behold ! they raise their trembling voices to invoke the blessing 
of God on you and yours forever. 

Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this struc- 
ture. You have heard us rehearse, with our feeble commendation, 
the names of departed patriots. Monuments and eulogy belong 
to the dead. We give then this day to Warren and his associates. 
On other occasions they have been given to your more immediate 
companions in arms, to Washington, to Greene, to Gates, to Sulli- 
van, and to Lincoln. We have become reluctant to grant these, 
our highest and last honors, further. We would gladly hold them 
yet back from the little remnant of that immortal band. " Serus 
in calum redcasT Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, O, very 
far distant be the day, when any inscription shall bear your name, 
or any tongue pronounce its eulogy ! ^ 

The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to invite us, 
respects the great changes which have happened in the fifty years 
since the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. And it peculiarly 
marks the character of the present age, that, in looking at these 
changes, and in estimating their effect on our condition, we are 
obliged to consider, not what has been done in our country only, but 
in others also. In these interesting times, while nations are making 
separate and individual advances in improvement, they make, too, 
a common progress ; like vessels on a common tide, propelled by 
the gales at different rates, according to their several structure and 
management, but all moved forward by one mighty current, strong 
enough to bear onward whatever does not sink beneath it. 

A chief distinction of the present day is a community of opinions 
and knowledge amongst men in different nations, existing in a 
degree heretofore unknown. Knowledge has, in our time, tri- 
umphed, and is triumphing, over distance, over difference of lan- 
guages, over diversity of habits, over prejudice, and over bigotry. 
The civilized and Christian world is fast learning the great lesson, 
that difference of nation does not imply necessary hostility, and 
that all contact need not be war. The whole world is becoming 
a common field for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, 
power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, and 
the world will hear it. A great chord of sentiment and feeling 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 285 

runs through two continents, and vibrates over both. Every breeze 
wafts inteUigence from country to country, every wave rolls it ; 
all give it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast com- 
merce of ideas ; there are marts and exchanges for intellectual 
discoveries, and a wonderful fellowship of those individual intelli- 
gences which make up the mind and opinion of the age. Mind 
is the great lever of all things ; human thought is the process by 
which human ends are ultimately answered ; and the diffusion of 
knowledge, so astonishing in the last half-century, has rendered 
innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to be com- 
petitors or fellow- workers on the theatre of intellectual operation. 

From these causes important improvements have taken place 
in the personal condition of individuals. Generally speaking, man- 
kind are not only better fed and better clothed, but they are able 
also to enjoy more leisure ; they possess more refinement and more 
self-respect. A superior tone of education, manners, and habits 
prevails. This remark, most true in its application to our own 
country, is also partly true when applied elsewhere. It is proved 
by the vastly augmented consumption of those articles of manu- 
facture and of commerce which contribute to the comforts and 
the decencies of life ; an augmentation which has far outrun the 
progress of population. And while the unexampled and almost 
incredible use of machinery would seem to supply the place of 
labor, labor still finds its occupation and its reward ; so wisely has 
Providence adjusted men's wants and desires to their condition 
and their capacity. 

Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made during the 
last half-century in the polite and the mechanic arts, in machinery 
and manufactures, in commerce and agriculture, in letters and in 
science, would require volumes. I must abstain wholly from these 
subjects, and turn for a moment to the contemplation of what has 
been done on the great question of politics and government. This 
is the master topic of the age ; and during the whole fifty years it 
has intensely occupied the thoughts of men. The nature of civil 
government, its ends and uses, have been canvassed and inves- 
tigated ; ancient opinions attacked and defended ; new ideas recom- 
mended and resisted, by whatever power the mind of man could 



286 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

bring to the controversy. From the closet and the public halls the 
debate has been transferred to the field ; and the world has been 
shaken by wars of unexampled magnitude, and the greatest variety 
of fortune. A day of peace has at length succeeded ; and now that 
the strife has subsided, and the smoke cleared away, we may begin 
to see what has actually been done, permanently changing the 
state and condition of human society. And, without dwelling on 
particular circumstances, it is most apparent, that, from the before- 
mentioned causes of augmented knowledge and improved individual 
condition, a real, substantial, and important change has taken place, 
and is taking place, highly favorable, on the whole, to human liberty 
and human happiness. 

The great wheel of political revolution began to move in America. 
Here its rotation was guarded, regular, and safe. Transferred to the 
other continent, from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an 
irregular and violent impulse ; it whirled along with a fearful cel- 
erity ; till at length, like the chariot-wheels in the races of antiquity, 
it took fire from the rapidity of its own motion, and blazed onward, 
spreading conflagration and terror around. 

We learn from the result of this experiment, how fortunate was 
our own condition, and how admirably the character of our people 
was calculated for setting the great example of popular govern- 
ments. The possession of power did not turn the heads of the 
American people, for they had long been in the habit of exercising 
a great degree of self-control. Although the paramount authority 
of the parent state existed over them, yet a large field of legislation 
had always been open to our Colonial assemblies. They were accus- 
tomed to representative bodies and the forms of free government ; 
they understood the doctrine of the division of power among dif- 
ferent branches, and the necessity of checks on each. The char- 
acter of our countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral, and religious ; 
and there was little in the change to shock their feelings of justice 
and humanity, or even to disturb an honest prejudice. We had no 
domestic throne to overturn, no privileged orders to cast down, no 
violent changes of property to encounter. In the American Revolu- 
tion, no man sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy 
his own. None hoped for plunder or for spoil. Rapacity was 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 287 

unknown to it ; the axe was not among the instruments of its 
accompHshment ; and we all know that it could not have lived a 
single day under any well-founded imputation of possessing a 
tendency adverse to the Christian religion. 

It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances less auspicious, 
political revolutions elsewhere, even when well intended, have ter- 
minated differently. It is, indeed, a great achievement, it is the 
masterwork of the world, to establish governments entirely popular 
on lasting foundations ; nor is it easy, indeed, to introduce the popu- 
lar principle at all into governments to which it has been altogether 
a stranger. It cannot be doubted, however, that Europe has come 
out of the contest, in which she has been so long engaged, with 
greatly superior knowledge, and, in many respects, in a highly im- 
proved condition. Whatever benefit has been acquired is likely to 
be retained, for it consists mainly in the acquisition of more enlight- 
ened ideas. And although kingdoms and provinces may be wrested 
from the hands that hold them, in the same manner they were 
obtained ; although ordinary and vulgar power may, in human 
affairs, be lost as it has been won ; yet it is the glorious preroga- 
tive of the empire of knowledge, that what it gains it never loses. 
On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power ; 
all its ends become means ; all its attainments, helps to new con- 
quests. Its whole abundant harvest is but so much seed wheat, 
and nothing has limited, and nothing can limit, the amount of 
ultimate product. 

Under the influence of this rapidly increasing knowledge, the 
people have begun, in all forms of government, to think, and to 
reason, on affairs of state. Regarding government as an institution 
for the public good, they demand a knowledge of its operations, 
and a participation in its exercise. A call for the representative 
system, wherever it is not enjoyed, and where there is already 
intelligence enough to estimate its value, is perseveringly made. 
Where men may speak out, they demand it ; where the bayonet 
is at their throats, they pray for it. 

When Louis the Fourteenth said, " I am the State," he ex- 
pressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited power. By the 
rules of that system, the people are disconnected from the state ; 



288 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

they are its subjects, it is their lord. These ideas, founded in the 
love of power, and long supported by the excess and the abuse of 
it, are yielding, in our age, to other opinions ; and the civilized 
world seems at last to be proceeding to the conviction of that fun- 
damental and manifest truth, that the powers of government are 
but a trust, and that they cannot be lawfully exercised but for the 
good of the community. As knowledge is more and more extended, 
this conviction becomes more and more general. Knowledge, in 
truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and power are scat- 
tered with all its beams. The prayer of the Grecian champion, 
when enveloped in unnatural clouds and darkness, is the appro- 
priate political supplication for the people of every country not 
yet blessed with free institutions : — 

" Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore, 
Give me to see, — and Ajax asks no more." 

We may hope that the growing influence of enlightened senti- 
ment will promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars to 
maintain family alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, and 
to regulate successions to thrones, which have occupied so much 
room in the history of modern times, if not less likely to happen 
at all, will be less likely to become general and involve many 
nations, as the great principle shall be more and more established, 
that the interest of the world is peace, and its first great statute, 
that every nation possesses the power of establishing a government 
for itself. But public opinion has attained also an influence over 
governments which do not admit the popular principle into their 
organization. A necessary respect for the judgment of the world 
operates, in some measure, as a control over the most unlimited 
forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this truth, that the 
interesting struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go on so 
long, without a direct interference, either to wrest that country 
from its present masters, or to execute the system of pacification 
by force ; and, with united strength, lay the neck of Christian and 
civilized Greek at the foot of the barbarian Turk. Let us thank 
God that we live in an age when something has influence besides 
the bayonet, and when the sternest authority does not venture to 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 289 

encounter the scorching power of pubHc reproach. Any attempt of 
the kind I have mentioned should be met by one universal burst of 
indignation ; the air of the civilized world ought to be made too 
warm to be comfortably breathed by any one who would hazard it. 

And now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction 
of the benefit which the example of our country has produced, and 
is likely to produce, on human freedom and human happiness. Let 
us endeavor to comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in 
all its importance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of 
human affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of repre- 
sentative and popular governments. Thus far our example shows 
that such governments are compatible, not only with respectability 
and power, but with repose, with peace, with security of personal 
rights, with good laws, and a just administration. 

We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are pre- 
ferred, either as being thought better in themselves, or as better 
suited to existing conditions, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. 
Our history hitherto proves, however, that the popular form is 
practicable, and that with wisdom and knowledge men may govern 
themselves ; and the duty incumbent on us is to preserve the con- 
sistency of this cheering example, and take care that nothing may 
weaken its authority with the world. If, in our case, the repre- 
sentative system ultimately fail, popular governments must be 
pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more 
favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The 
last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us ; and if it should 
be proclaimed, that our example had become an argument against 
the experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded 
throughout the earth. 

These are excitements to duty ; but they are not suggestions of 
doubt. Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us, 
and all that surrounds us, authorize the belief, that popular gov- 
ernments, though subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps 
not always for the better, may yet, in their general character, be as 
durable and permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that 
in our country any other is impossible. The principle of free 



290 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

governments adheres to the American soil. It is bedded in it, 
immovable as its mountains. 

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this 
generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who es- 
tablished our liberty and our government are daily dropping from 
among us. The great trust now descends to new hands. Let us 
apply ourselves to that which is presented to us, as our appropriate 
object. We can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier 
and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places 
for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of 
states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a 
great duty of defence and preservation ; and there is opened to 
us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly 
invites us. Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be 
the age of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the 
arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources 
of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote 
all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and gen- 
eration, may not perform something worthy to be remembered. 
Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing 
the great objects which our condition points out to us, let us act 
under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling, that these 
twenty-four States are one country. Let our conceptions be en- 
larged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over 
the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our 
object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but 
OUR COUNTRY. And, by the blessing of God, may that country 
itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression 
and terror, but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which 
the world may gaze with admiration forever ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 291 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

[Born in Kentucky, February 12, 1809; died at Washington, D.C., 
April 14, 1865] 

THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH 

Delivered at the Dedication of the National Cemetery 
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863 

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on 
this continent a new nation, conceived in Hberty, and dedicated 
to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are 
engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any 
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are 
met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate 
a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here 
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting 
and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can- 
not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can 
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to 
be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought 
here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be 
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, — that from 
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for 
which they gave the last full measure of devotion, — that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, — that 
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, — and 
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth. 



292 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
Delivered March 4, 1865 

Fellow-Countrymen : At this second appearing to take the 
oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an ex- 
tended address than there was at the first. Then, a statement, 
somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and 
proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public 
declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and 
phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and 
engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be 
presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself ; and it is, I 
trust, reasonably satisfactoiy and encouraging to all. With high 
hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All 
dreaded it ; all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address 
was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving 
the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking 
to dcstr-oy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and 
divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war ; but 
one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive ; 
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the 
war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not 
distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern 
part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful inter- 
est. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the 
war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the 
object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by 
war ; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to 
restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected 
for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already 
attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might 
cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each 
looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 293 

astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God ; 
and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange 
that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wring- 
ing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces : but let us 
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could 
not be answered ; that of neither has been answered fully. The 
Almighty has His own purposes. " Woe unto the world because 
of offenses ! for it must needs be that offenses come ; but woe 
to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose 
American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the provi- 
dence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued 
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that 
He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe 
due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein 
any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in 
a living God always ascribe to Him .'' Fondly do we hope, fer- 
vently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily 
pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited 
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in 
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, 
and his orphan ; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 



294 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 

[Born at Salem, Massachusetts, May 4, i 796 ; died at Boston, Massachusetts, 

January 28, 1859] 

THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO (EXTRACTS) 

Vol. II, Book V, Chap. II 

1520 

Opposite to the Spanish quarters, at only a few rods' distance, 
stood the great teocalli of HuitzilopotchH, This pyramidal mound, 
with the sanctuaries that crowned it, rising altogether to the height 
of near a hundred and fifty feet, afforded an elevated position that 
completely commanded the palace of Axayacatl, occupied by the 
Christians, A body of five or six hundred Mexicans, many of them 
nobles and warriors of the highest rank, had got possession of the 
teocalli, whence they discharged such a tempest of arrows on the 
garrison, that no one could leave his defences for a moment with- 
out imminent danger ; while the Mexicans, under shelter of the 
sanctuaries, were entirely covered from the fire of the besieged. 
It was obviously necessary to dislodge the enemy, if the Spaniards 
would remain longer in their quarters. 

Cortes assigned this service to his chamberlain Escobar, giving 
him a hundred men for the purpose, with orders to storm the teo- 
calli, and set fire to the sanctuaries. But that officer was thrice 
repulsed in the attempt, and, after the most desperate efforts, was 
obliged to return with considerable loss and without accomplishing 
his object. 

Cortes, who saw the immediate necessity of carrying the place, 
determined to lead the storming party himself. He was then suffer- 
ing much from the wound in his left hand, which had disabled it for 
the present. He made the arm serviceable, however, by fastening 
his buckler to it, and, thus crippled, sallied out at the head of three 
hundred chosen cavaliers, and several thousand of his auxiliaries. 

In the court-yard of the temple he found a numerous body 
of Indians prepared to dispute his passage. He briskly charged 
them, but the flat, smooth stones of the pavement were so slippery 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 295 

that the horses lost their footing and many of them fell. Hastily 
dismounting, they sent back the animals to their quarters, and, 
renewing the assault, the Spaniards succeeded without much diffi- 
culty in dispersing the Indian warriors, and opening a free passage 
for themselves to the teocalli. This building, as the reader may 
remember, was a large pyramidal structure, about three hundred 
feet square at the base. A flight of stone steps on the outside, at 
one of the angles of the mound, led to a platform, or terraced walk, 
which passed round the building until it reached a similar flight of 
stairs directly over the preceding, that conducted to another landing 
as before. As there were five bodies or divisions of the teocalli, it 
became necessary to pass round its whole extent four times, or nearly 
a mile, in order to reach the summit, which, it may be recollected, 
was an open area, crowned only by the two sanctuaries dedicated 
to the Aztec deities. 

Cortes, having cleared a way for the assault, sprang up the lower 
stairway, followed by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other gal- 
lant cavaliers of his little band, leaving a file of arquebusiers and a 
strong corps of Indian allies to hold the enemy in check at the foot 
of the monument. On the first landing, as well as on the several 
galleries above, and on the summit, the Aztec warriors were drawn 
up to dispute his passage. From their elevated position they show- 
ered down volleys of lighter missiles, together with heavy stones, 
beams, and burning rafters, which, thundering along the stairway, 
overturned the ascending Spaniards, and carried desolation through 
their ranks. The more fortunate, eluding or springing over these 
obstacles, succeeded in gaining the first terrace, where, throwing 
themselves on their enemies, they compelled them, after a short 
resistance, to fall back. The assailants pressed on, effectually 
supported by a brisk fire of the musketeers from below, which so 
much galled the Mexicans in their exposed situation, that they 
were glad to take shelter on the broad summit of the teocalli. 

Cortes and his comrades were close upon their rear, and the two 
parties soon found themselves face to face on this aerial battle-field, 
engaged in mortal combat in presence of the whole city, as well as 
of the troops in the court-yard, who paused, as if by mutual consent, 
from their own hostilities, gazing in silent expectation on the issue 



296 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of those above. The area, though somewhat smaller than the base 
of the teocalli, was large enough to afford a fair field of fight for 
a thousand combatants. It was paved with broad, flat stones. No 
impediment occurred over its surface, except the huge sacrificial 
block, and the temples of stone which rose to the height of forty 
feet, at the further extremity of the arena. One of these had been 
consecrated to the Cross ; the other was still occupied by the Mexican 
war-god. The Christian and the Aztec contended for their religions 
under the very shadow of their respective shrines ; while the Indian 
priests, running to and fro, with their hair wildly streaming over 
their sable mantles, seemed hovering in mid air, like so many demons 
of darkness urging on the work of slaughter ! 

The parties closed with the desperate fury of men who had no 
hope but in victory. Quarter was neither asked nor given ; and to 
fly was impossible. The edge of the area was unprotected by para- 
pet or battlement. The least slip would be fatal ; and the combat- 
ants, as they struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to 
roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. Cortes himself 
is said to have had a narrow escape from this dreadful fate. Two 
warriors, of strong, muscular frames, seized on him, and were drag- 
ging him violently towards the brink of the pyramid. Aware of their 
intention, he struggled with all his force, and, before they could 
accomplish their purpose, succeeded in tearing himself from their 
grasp, and hurling one of them over the walls with his own 
arm ! The story is not improbable in itself, for Cortes was a man 
of uncommon agility and strength. It has been often repeated, 
but not by contemporary history. 

The battle lasted with unintermitting fury for three hours. The. 
number of the enemy was double that of the Christians ; and it 
seemed as if it were a contest which must be determined by num- 
bers and brute force, rather than by superior science. But it was 
not so. The invulnerable armour of the Spaniard, his sword of 
matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advan- 
tages which far outweighed the odds of physical strength and 
numbers. After doing all that the courage of despair could 
enable men to do, resistance grew fainter and fainter on the side 
of the Aztecs. One after another they had fallen. Two or three 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 297 

priests only survived to be led away in triumph by the victors. 
Every other combatant was stretched a corpse on the bloody 
arena, or had been hurled from the giddy heights. Yet the loss 
of the Spaniards was not inconsiderable. It amounted to forty- 
five of their best men, and nearly all the remainder were more 
or less injured in the desperate conflict. 

The victorious cavaliers now rushed towards the sanctuaries. 
The lower story was of stone ; the two upper were of wood. 
Penetrating into their recesses, they had the mortification to find 
the image of the Virgin and the Cross removed. But in the other 
edifice they still beheld the grim figure of Huitzilopotchli, with his 
censer of smoking hearts, and the walls of his oratory reeking with 
gore, — not improbably of their own countrymen ! With shouts of 
triumph the Christians tore the uncouth monster from his niche, 
and tumbled him, in the presence of the horror-struck Aztecs, 
down the steps of the teocalli. They then set fire to the accursed 
building. The flame speedily ran up the slender towers, sending 
forth an ominous light over city, lake, and valley, to the remotest 
hut among the mountains. It was the funeral pyre of paganism, 
and proclaimed the fall of that sanguinary religion which had so 
long hung like a dark cloud over the fair regions of Anahuac ! 

It is not easy to depict the portrait of Montezuma in its true 
colours, since it has been exhibited to us under two aspects, of the 
most opposite and contradictory character. In the accounts gathered 
of him by the Spaniards, on coming into the country, he was uni- 
formly represented as bold and warlike, unscrupulous as to the 
means of gratifying his ambition, hollow and perfidious, the terror 
of his foes, with a haughty bearing which made him feared even 
by his own people. They found him, on the contrary, not merely 
affable and gracious, but disposed to waive all the advantages of 
his own position, and to place them on a footing with himself ; 
making their wishes his law ; gentle even to effeminacy in his de- 
portment, and constant in his friendship, while his whole nation 
was in arms against them, — Yet these traits, so contradictory, were 
truly enough drawn. They are to be explained by the extraordinary 
circumstances of his position. 



298 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

When Montezuma ascended the throne, he was scarcely twenty- 
three years of age. Young, and ambitious of extending his empire, 
he was continually engaged in war, and is said to have been present 
himself in nine pitched battles. He was greatly renowned for his 
martial prowess, for he belonged to the Qiiachictin, the highest 
military order of his nation, and one into which but few even of 
its sovereigns had been admitted. In later life, he preferred intrigue 
to violence, as more consonant to his character and priestly education. 
In this he was as great an adept as any prince of his time, and, 
by arts not very honourable to himself, succeeded in filching away 
much of the territory of his royal kinsman of Tezcuco. Severe in 
the administration of justice, he made important reforms in the 
arrangement of the tribunals. He introduced other innovations in 
the royal household, creating new offices, introducing a lavish mag- 
nificence and forms of courtly etiquette unknown to his ruder 
predecessors. He was, in short, most attentive to all that concerned 
the exterior and pomp of royalty. Stately and decorous, he was 
careful of his own dignity, and might be said to be as great an 
"actor of majesty" among the barbarian potentates of the New 
World, as Louis the Fourteenth was among the polished princes 
of Europe. 

He was deeply tinctured, moreover, with that spirit of bigotry, 
which threw such a shade over the latter days of the French 
monarch. He received the Spaniards as the beings predicted by 
his oracles. The anxious dread, with which he had evaded their 
proffered visit, was founded on the same feelings which led him 
so blindly to resign himself to them on their approach. He felt 
himself rebuked by their superior genius. He at once conceded 
all that they demanded, — his treasures, his power, even his person. 
For their sake, he forsook his wonted occupations, his pleasures, 
his most familiar habits. He might be said to forego his nature ; 
and, as his subjects asserted, to change his sex and become a 
woman. If we cannot refuse our contempt for the pusillanimity 
of the Aztec monarch, it should be mitigated by the consideration, 
that his pusillanimity sprung from his superstition, and that super- 
stition in the savage is the substitute for religious principle in 
the civilised man. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 299 

It is not easy to contemplate the fate of Montezuma without 
feelings of the strongest compassion ; — to see him thus borne 
along the tide of events beyond his power to avert or control ; to 
see him, like some stately tree, the pride of his own Indian forests, 
towering aloft in the pomp and majesty of its branches, by its very 
eminence a mark for the thunderbolt, the first victim of the tempest 
which was to sweep over its native hills ! When the wise king of 
Tezcuco addressed his royal relative at his coronation, he exclaimed, 
'" Happy the empire, which is now in the meridian of its prosperity, 
for the sceptre is given to one whom the Almighty has in his 
keeping ; and the nations shall hold him in reverence ! " Alas ! the 
subject of this auspicious invocation lived to see his empire melt 
away like the winter's wreath ; to see a strange race drop, as it were, 
from the clouds on his land ; to find himself a prisoner in the palace 
of his fathers, the companion of those who were the enemies of his 
gods and his people ; to be insulted, reviled, trodden in the dust, 
by the meanest of his subjects, by those who, a few months previous, 
had trembled at his glance ; drawing his last breath in the halls of 
the stranger, a lonely outcast in the heart of his own capital ! He 
was the sad victim of destiny, — a destiny as dark and irresistible 
in its march, as that which broods over the mythic legends of 
antiquity ! 

Montezuma, at the time of his death, was about forty-one years 
old, of which he reigned eighteen. His person and manners have 
been already described. He left a numerous progeny by his various 
wives, most of whom, having lost their consideration after the 
Conquest, fell into obscurity as they mingled with the mass of the 
Indian population. Two of them, however, a son and a daughter, 
who embraced Christianity, became the founders of noble houses 
in Spain. The government, willing to show its gratitude for the 
large extent of empire derived from their ancestor, conferred on 
them ample estates, and important hereditary honours ; and the 
Counts of Montezuma and Tula, intermarrying with the best blood 
of Castile, intimated by their names and titles their illustrious 
descent from the royal dynasty of Mexico. 

Montezuma's death was a misfortune to the Spaniards. While 
he lived, they had a precious pledge in their hands, which, in 



300 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

extremity, they might possibly have turned to account. Now the 
last link was snapped which connected them with the natives of the 
country. But independently of interested feelings, Cortes and his 
officers were much affected by his death from personal consider- 
ations ; and, when they gazed on the cold remains of the ill-starred 
monarch, they may have felt a natural compunction as they con- 
trasted his late flourishing condition with that to which his friendship 
for them had now reduced him. 

The Spanish commander showed all respect for his memory. 
His body, arrayed in its royal robes, was laid decently on a bier, 
and borne on the shoulders of his nobles to his subjects in the city. 
What honours, if any, indeed, were paid to his remains, is uncertain. 
A sound of wailing, distinctly heard in the western quarters of the 
capital, was interpreted by the Spaniards into the moans of a funeral 
procession, as it bore the body to be laid among those of his an- 
cestors, under the princely shades of Chapoltepec. Others state, 
that it was removed to a burial-place in the city named Copalco, 
and there burnt with the usual solemnities and signs of lamentation 
by his chiefs, but not without some unworthy insults from the 
Mexican populace. Whatever be the fact, the people, occupied with 
the stirring scenes in which they were engaged, were probably not 
long mindful of the monarch, who had taken no share in their late 
patriotic movements. Nor is it strange that the very memory of 
his sepulchre should be effaced in the terrible catastrophe which 
afterwards overwhelmed the capital, and swept away every landmark 
from its surface. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 301 

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 

[Born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 15, 1814; died at Dorset, England, 

May 29, 1877] 

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC 
Vol. I, Chap. I, Par. 1-15 

On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates of the 
Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at 
Brussels. They had been summoned to be the witnesses and the 
guarantees of the abdication which Charles V. had long before 
resolved upon, and which he was that day to execute. The Em- 
peror, like many potentates before and since, was fond of great 
political spectacles. He knew their influence upon the masses of 
mankind. Although plain, even to shabbiness, in his own costume, 
and usually attired in black, no one ever understood better than 
he how to arrange such exhibitions in a striking and artistic style. 
We have seen the theatrical and imposing manner in which he 
quelled the insurrection at Ghent, and nearly crushed the life for- 
ever out of that vigorous and turbulent little commonwealth. The 
closing scene of his long and energetic reign he had now arranged 
with profound study, and with an accurate knowledge of the man- 
ner in which the requisite effects were to be produced. The termi- 
nation of his own career, the opening of his beloved Philip's, were 
to be dramatized in a manner worthy the august character of the 
actors, and the importance of the great stage where they played 
their parts. The eyes of the whole world were directed upon that 
day towards Brussels ; for an imperial abdication was an event 
which had not, in the sixteenth century, been staled by custom. 

The gay capital of Brabant, of that province which rejoiced in 
the liberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the "joyful 
entrance," was worthy to be the scene of the imposing show. 
Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries, and, at that 
day, numbered about one hundred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, 
six miles in circumference, were already two hundred years old. 
Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, 



302 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A wide ex- 
panse of living verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile 
corn-fields, flowed round it like a sea. The foot of the town was 
washed by the little river Senne, while the irregular but picturesque 
streets rose up the steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and 
stairways of an amphitheatre. Nearly in the heart of the place 
rose the audacious and exquisitely embroidered tower of the town- 
house, three hundred and sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of 
needlework in stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb 
tracery of that lace which has for centuries been synonymous with 
the city, and rearing itself above a facade of profusely decorated 
and brocaded architecture. The crest of the elevation was crowned 
by the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive 
and thickly wooded park on the left, and by the stately mansions 
of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemburg, and other Flemish 
grandees, on the right. The great forest of Soignies, dotted with 
monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game, 
whither the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where 
the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to within 
a quarter of a mile of the city walls. The population, as thrifty, as 
intelligent, as prosperous as that of any city in Europe, was divided 
into fifty-two guilds of artisans, among which the most important 
were the armorers, whose suits of mail would turn a musket-ball ; 
the gardeners, upon whose gentler creations incredible sums were 
annually lavished ; and the tapestry-workers, whose gorgeous fabrics 
were the wonder of the world. Seven principal churches, of which 
the most striking was that of St. Gudule, with its twin towers, its 
charming facade, and its magnificently painted windows, adorned 
the upper part of the city. The number seven was a magic num- 
ber in Brussels, and was supposed at that epoch, during which 
astronomy was in its infancy and astrology in its prime, to denote 
the seven planets which governed all things terrestrial by their 
aspects and influences. Seven noble families, springing from seven 
ancient castles, supplied the stock from which the seven senators 
were selected who composed the upper council of the city. There 
were seven great squares, seven city gates, and upon the occasion 
of the present ceremony, it was observed by the lovers of wonderful 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 303 

coincidences, that seven crowned heads would be congregated 
under a single roof in the liberty-loving city. 

The palace where the states-general were upon this occasion 
convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of Brabant since 
the days of John the Second, who had built it about the year 1 300. 
It was a spacious and convenient building, but not distinguished 
for the beauty of its architecture. In front was a large open square, 
enclosed by an iron railing ; in the rear an extensive and beautiful 
park, filled with forest trees, and containing gardens and labyrinths, 
fish-ponds and game preserves, fountains and promenades, race- 
courses and archery grounds. The main entrance to this edifice 
opened upon a spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and sym- 
metrical chapel. The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious 
proportions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place 
where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were 
held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arras, 
representing the life and achievements of Gideon, the Midianite, 
and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the " fleece 
of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron 
of the Knights of the Fleece. On the present occasion there were 
various additional embellishments of flowers and votive garlands. 
At the western end a spacious platform or stage, with six or seven 
steps, had been constructed, below which was a range of benches 
for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. Upon the stage itself 
there were rows of seats, covered with tapestry, upon the right 
hand and upon the left. These were respectively to accommodate 
the knights of the order and the guests of high distinction. In the 
rear of these were other benches, for the members of the three 
great councils. In the centre of the stage was a splendid canopy, 
decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath which were placed 
three gilded arm-chairs. All the seats upon the platform were 
vacant, but the benches below, assigned to the deputies of the 
provinces, were already filled. Numerous representatives from 
all the states but two — Gelderland and Overyssel — had already 
taken their places. Grave magistrates, in chain and gown, and 
executive officers in the splendid civic uniforms for which the 
Netherlands were celebrated, already filled every seat within the 



304 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

space allotted. The remainder of the hall was crowded with the 
more favored portion of the multitude which had been fortunate 
enough to procure admission to the exhibition. The archers and 
hallebardiers of the body-guard kept watch at all the doors. 
The theatre was filled — the audience was eager with expectation 
— the actors were yet to arrive. As the clock struck three, the 
hero of the scene appeared. Caesar, as he was always designated 
in the classic language of the day, entered, leaning on the shoulder 
of William of Orange. They came from the chapel, and were 
immediately followed by Philip the Second and Queen Mary of 
Hungary. The Archduke Maximilian, the Duke of Savoy, and 
other great personages came afterwards, accompanied by a glit- 
tering throng of warriors, councillors, governors, and Knights 
of the Fleece. 

Many individuals of existing or future historic celebrity in the 
Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the student of the 
epoch, seemed to have been grouped, as if by premeditated design, 
upon this imposing platform, where the curtain was to fall forever 
upon the mightiest emperor since Charlemagne, and where the 
opening scene of the long and tremendous tragedy of Philip's 
reign was to be simultaneously enacted. There was the Bishop 
of Arras, soon to be known throughout Christendom by the more 
celebrated title of Cardinal Granvelle, the serene and smiling priest 
whose subtle influence over the destinies of so many individuals 
then present, and over the fortunes of the whole land, was to be 
so extensive and so deadly. There was that flower of Flemish 
chivalry, the lineal descendant of ancient Frisian kings, already 
distinguished for his bravery in many fields, but not having yet won 
those two remarkable victories which were soon to make the name 
of Egmont like the sound of a trumpet throughout the whole country. 
Tall, magnificent in costume, with dark flowing hair, soft brown 
eye, smooth cheek, a slight moustache, and features of almost fem- 
inine delicacy ; such was the gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Egmont. 
The Count of Horn, too, with bold, sullen face, and fan-shaped 
beard — a brave, honest, discontented, quarrelsome, unpopular 
man ; those other twins in doom — the Marquis Berghen and 
the Lord of Montigny ; the Baron Berlaymont, brave, intensely 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 305 

loyal, insatiably greedy for office and wages, but who, at least, 
never served but one party ; the Duke of Arschot, who was to 
serve all, essay to rule all, and to betray all — a splendid seignior, 
magnificent in cramoisy velvet, but a poor creature, who traced 
his pedigree from Adam, according to the family monumental in- 
scriptions at Louvain, but who was better known as grand-nephew 
of the emperor's famous tutor, Chievres ; the bold, debauched 
Brederode, with handsome, reckless face and turbulent demeanor; 
the infamous Noircarmes, whose name was to be covered with 
eternal execration, for aping towards his own compatriots and 
kindred as much of Alva's atrocities and avarice, as he was per- 
mitted to exercise ; the distinguished soldiers Meghen and Arem- 
berg — these, with many others whose deeds of arms were to be- 
come celebrated throughout Europe, were all conspicuous in the 
brilliant crowd. There, too, was that learned Frisian, President 
Viglius, crafty, plausible, adroit, eloquent — a small, brisk man, 
with long yellow hair, glittering green eyes, round, tumid, rosy 
cheeks, and flowing beard. Foremost among the Spanish gran- 
dees, and close to Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy Gomez, 
or, as he was familiarly called, "Re y Gomez" (King and Gomez), 
a man of meridional aspect, with coal-black hair and beard, gleam- 
ing eyes, a face pallid with intense application, and slender but 
handsome figure ; while in immediate attendance upon the em- 
peror, was the immortal Prince of Orange. 

Such were a few only of the most prominent in that gay throng, 
whose fortunes, in part, it will be our humble duty to narrate ; how 
many of them passing through all this glitter to a dark and myste- 
rious doom ! — some to perish on public scaffolds, some by mid- 
night assassination ; others, fortunate to fall on the battlefield — 
nearly all, sooner or later, to be laid in bloody graves ! 

All the company present had risen to their feet as the Emperor 
entered. By his command, all immediately afterwards resumed their 
places. The benches at either end of the platform were accordingly 
filled with the royal and princely personages invited, with the Fleece 
Knights, wearing the insignia of their order, with the members of 
the three great councils, and with the governors. The Emperor, 
the King, and the Queen of Hungary, were left conspicuous in the 



3o6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

centre of the scene. As the whole object of the ceremony was to 
present an impressive exhibition, it is worth our while to examine 
minutely the appearance of the two principal characters. 

Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight months old ; 
but he was already decrepit with premature old age. He was of 
about the middle height, and had been athletic and well-proportioned. 
Broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, thin in the flank, very 
muscular in the arms and legs, he had been able to match himself 
with all competitors in the tourney and the ring, and to vanquish 
the bull with his own hand in the favorite national amusement of 
Spain. He had been able in the field to do the duty of captain and 
soldier, to endure fatigue and exposure, and every privation except 
fasting. These personal advantages were now departed. Crippled 
in hands, knees .and legs, he supported himself with difficulty upon 
a crutch, with the aid of an attendant's shoulder. In face he had 
always been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not improved 
his physiognomy. His hair, once of a light color, was now white 
with age, close-clipped and bristling ; his beard was grey, coarse, 
and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and commanding ; the 
eye was dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and benignant. 
His nose was aquiline but crooked. The lower part of his face was 
famous for its deformity. The under lip, a Burgundian inheritance, 
as faithfully transmitted as the duchy and county, was heavy and 
hanging ; the lower jaw protruding so far beyond the upper, that 
it was impossible for him to bring together the few fragments of 
teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an 
intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he 
was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in 
consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly 
human, but rather an original deformity. 

So much for the father. The son, Philip the Second, was a 
small, meagre man, much below the middle height, with thin legs, 
a narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air of an habitual invalid. 
He seemed so little, upon his first visit to his aunts, the Queens 
Eleanor and Mary, accustomed to look upon proper men in 
Flanders and Germany, that he was fain to win their favor by 
making certain attempts in the tournament, in which his success 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD ' 307 

was sufficiently problematical. "His body," says his professed pane- 
gyrist, "was but a human cage, in which, however brief and narrow, 
dwelt a soul to whose flight the immeasurable expanse of heaven 
was too contracted," The same wholesale admirer adds, that "his 
aspect was so reverend, that rustics who met him alone in a wood, 
without knowing him, bowed down with instinctive veneration." 
In face, he was the living image of his father, having the same 
broad forehead, and blue eye, with the same aquiline, but better 
proportioned, nose. In the lower part of the countenance, the re- 
markable Burgundian deformity was likewise reproduced. He had 
the same heavy, hanging lip, with a vast mouth, and monstrously 
protruding lower jaw. His complexion was fair, his hair light and 
thin, his beard yellow, short, and pointed. He had the aspect of 
a Fleming, but the loftiness of a Spaniard. His demeanor in public 
was still, silent, almost sepulchral. He looked habitually on the 
ground when he conversed, was chary of speech, embarrassed, and 
even suffering in manner. This was ascribed partly to a natural 
haughtiness which he had occasionally endeavored to overcome, 
and partly to habitual pains in the stomach, occasioned by his 
inordinate fondness for pastry. 

Such was the personal appearance of the man who was about 
to receive into his single hand the destinies of half the world ; 
whose single will was, for the future, to shape the fortunes of every 
individual then present, of many millions more in Europe, America, 
and at the ends of the earth, and of countless millions yet unborn. 

The three royal personages being seated upon chairs placed 
triangularly under the canopy, such of the audience as had seats 
provided for them, now took their places, and the proceedings 
commenced. Philibert de Bruxelles, a member of the privy council 
of the Netherlands, arose at the emperor's command, and made a 
long oration. He spoke of the emperor's warm affection for the 
provinces, as the land of his birth ; of his deep regret that his 
broken health and failing powers, both of body and mind, com- 
pelled him to resign his sovereignty, and to seek relief for his 
shattered frame in a more genial climate. Caesar's gout was then 
depicted in energetic language, which must have cost him a twinge 
as he sat there and listened to the councillor's eloquence. " 'T is 



3o8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

a most truculent executioner," said Pliilibert : "it invades the 
whole body, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, 
leaving nothing untouched. It contracts the nerves with intolerable 
anguish, it enters the bones, it freezes the marrow, it converts the 
lubricating fluids of the joints into chalk, it pauses not until, hav- 
ing exhausted and debilitated the whole body, it has rendered all 
its necessary instruments useless, and conquered the mind by im- 
mense torture." Engaged in mortal struggle with such an enemy, 
Caesar felt himself obliged, as the councillor proceeded to inform 
his audience, to change the scene of the contest from the humifl 
air of Flanders to the warmer atmosphere of Spain. He rejoiced, 
however, that his son was both vigorous and experienced, and that 
his recent marriage with the Queen of England had furnished the 
provinces with a most valuable alliance. He then again referred 
to the Emperor's boundless love for his subjects, and concluded 
with a tremendous, but superfluous, exhortation to Philip on the 
necessity of maintaining the Catholic religion in its purity. After 
this long harangue, which has been fully reported by several his- 
torians who were present at the ceremony, the councillor proceeded 
to read the deed of cession, by which Philip, already sovereign of 
Sicily, Naples, Milan, and titular King of England, France, and 
Jerusalem, now received all the duchies, marquisates, earldoms, 
baronies, cities, towns, and castles of the Burgundian property, 
including, of course, the seventeen Netherlands. 

As De Bruxelles finished, there was a buzz of admiration 
throughout the assembly, mingled with murmurs of regret, that in 
the present great danger upon the frontiers from the belligerent 
King of France and his warlike and restless nation, the provinces 
should be left without their ancient and puissant defender. The 
Emperor then rose to his feet. Leaning on his crutch, he beckoned 
from his seat the personage upon whose arm he had leaned as he 
entered the hall. A tall, handsome youth of twenty-two came for- 
ward — a man whose name from that time forward, and as long 
as history shall endure, has been, and will be, more familiar than 
any other in the mouths of Netherlanders. At that day he had 
rather a southern than a German or Flemish appearance. He had 
a Spanish cast of features, dark, well chiselled, and symmetrical. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 309 

His head was small and well placed upon his shoulders. His hair 
was dark-brown, as were also his moustache and peaked beard. 
His forehead was lofty, spacious, and already prematurely engraved 
with the anxious lines of thought. His eyes were full, brown, well 
opened, and expressive of profound reflection. He was dressed in 
the magnificent apparel for which the Netherlanders were cele- 
brated above all other nations, and which the ceremony rendered 
necessary. His presence being considered indispensable at this 
great ceremony, he had been summoned but recently from the 
camp on the frontier, where, notwithstanding his youth, the em- 
peror had appointed him to command his army in chief against 
such antagonists as Admiral Coligny and the Due de Nevers. 

Thus supported upon his crutch and upon the shoulder of 
William of Orange, the Emperor proceeded to address the states, 
by the aid of a closely-written brief which he held in his hand. 
He reviewed rapidly the progress of events from his seventeenth 
year up to that day. He spoke of his nine expeditions into Ger- 
many, six to Spain, seven to Italy, four to France, ten to the 
Netherlands, two to England, as many to Africa, and of his eleven 
voyages by sea. He sketched his various wars, victories, and treaties 
of peace, assuring his hearers that the welfare of his subjects 
and the security of the Roman Catholic religion had ever been 
the leading objects of his life. As long as God had granted him 
health, he continued, only enemies could have regretted that Charles 
was living and reigning, but now that his strength was but vanity, 
and life fast ebbing away, his love for dominion, his affection for 
his subjects, and his regard for their interests, required his depar- 
ture. Instead of a decrepit man with one foot in the grave, he 
presented them with a sovereign in the prime of life and the vigor 
of health. Turning toward Philip, he observed, that for a dying 
father to bequeath so magnificent an empire to his son was a deed 
worthy of gratitude, and that when the father thus descended to 
the grave before his time, and by an anticipated and living burial 
sought to provide for the welfare of his realms and the grandeur 
of his son, the benefit thus conferred was surely far greater. He 
added, that the debt would be paid to him and with usury, should 
Philip conduct himself in his administration of the province with 



3IO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

a wise and affectionate regard to their true interests. Posterity 
would applaud his abdication, should his son prove worthy of his 
bounty ; and that could only be by living in the fear of God, and 
by maintaining law, justice, and the Catholic religion in all their 
purity, as the true foundation of the realm. In conclusion, he 
entreated the estates, and through them the nation, to render 
obedience to their new prince, to maintain concord and to pre- 
serve inviolate the Catholic faith ; begging them, at the same 
time, to pardon him all errors or offences which he might have 
committed towards them during his reign, and assuring them that 
he should unceasingly remember their obedience and affection in 
his every prayer to that Being to whom the remainder of his life 
was to be dedicated. 

Such brave words as these, so many vigorous asseverations of 
attempted performance of duty, such fervent hopes expressed of 
a benign administration in behalf of the son, could not but affect 
the sensibilities of the audience, already excited and softened by 
the impressive character of the whole display. Sobs were heard 
throughout every portion of the hall, and tears poured profusely 
from every eye. The Fleece Knights on the platform and the 
burghers in the background were all melted with the same emotion. 
As for the Emperor himself, he sank almost fainting upon his 
chair as he concluded his address. An ashy paleness overspread 
his countenance, and he wept like a child. Even the icy Philip 
was almost softened, as he rose to perform his part in the cere- 
mony. Dropping upon his knees before his father's feet, he 
reverently kissed his hand. Charles placed his hands solemnly 
upon his son's head, made the sign of the cross, and blessed him 
in the name of the Holy Trinity. Then raising him in his arms 
he tenderly embraced him, saying, as he did so, to the great poten- 
tates around him, that he felt a sincere compassion for the son 
on whose shoulders so heavy a weight had just devolved, and 
which only a life-long labor would enable him to support. Philip 
now uttered a few words expressive of his duty to his father and 
his affection for his people. Turning to the orders, he signified his 
regret that he was unable to address them either in the French or 
Flemish language, and was therefore obliged to ask their attention 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 31 1 

to the Bishop of Arras, who would act as his interpreter, Antony 
Perrenot accordingly arose, and in smooth, fluent, well-turned com- 
monplaces, expressed at great length the gratitude of Philip towards 
his father, with his firm determination to walk in the path of duty, 
and to obey his father's counsels and example in the future admin- 
istration of the provinces. This long address of the prelate was 
responded to at equal length by Jacob Maas, member of the coun- 
cil of Brabant, a man of great learning, eloquence and prolixity, 
who had been selected to reply on behalf of the states-general, 
and who now, in the name of these bodies, accepted the abdica- 
tion in an elegant and complimentary harangue. Queen Mary of 
Hungary, the " Christian widow " of Erasmus, and Regent of 
the Netherlands during the past twenty-five years, then rose to re- 
sign her ofifice, making a brief address expressive of her affection 
for the people, her regrets at leaving them, and her hopes that 
all errors which she might have committed during her long 
administration would be forgiven her. Again the redundant Maas 
responded, asserting in terms of fresh compliment and elegance 
the uniform satisfaction of the provinces with her conduct during 
her whole career. 

The orations and replies having now been brought to a close, 
the ceremony was terminated. The Emperor, leaning on the 
shoulders of the Prince of Orange and of the Count de Buren, 
slowly left the hall, followed by Philip, the Queen of Hungary, 
and the whole court ; all in the same order in which they had 
entered, and by the same passage into the chapel. 



312 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 

[Born at Boston, Massachusetts, September i6, 1823; died at Jamaica Plain, 
Massachusetts, November 8, 1893] 

THE JESUITS IN NORTH AMERICA IN THE SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 

Vol. I, Chap. XVI (Extract) 

In the early morning of the second of August, 1642, twelve 
Huron canoes were moving slowly along the northern shore of the 
expansion of the St. Lawrence known as the Lake of St. Peter. 
There were on board about forty persons, including four French- 
men, one of them being the Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, whom we have 
already followed on his missionary journey to the towns of the 
Tobacco Nation. In the interval he had not been idle. During 
the last autumn, (1641) he, with Father Charles Raymbault, had 
passed along the shore of Lake Huron northward, entered the 
strait through which Lake Superior discharges itself, pushed on 
as far as the Sault Sainte Marie, and preached the Faith to two 
thousand Ojibwas, and other Algonquins there assembled. He was 
now on his return from a far more perilous errand. The Huron 
mission was in a state of destitution. There was need of clothing 
for the priests, of vessels for the altars, of bread and wine for the 
Eucharist, of writing materials, — in short, of everything ; and, 
early in the summer of the present year, Jogues had descended 
to Three Rivers and Quebec with the Huron traders, to procure 
the necessary supplies. He had accomplished his task, and was 
on his way back to the mission. With him were a few Huron 
converts, and among them a noted Christian chief, Eustache 
Ahatsistari. Others of the party were in course of instruction for 
baptism ; but the greater part were heathen, whose canoes were 
deeply laden with the proceeds of their bargains with the French 
fur-traders. 

Jogues sat in one of the leading canoes. He was born at Or- 
leans in 1607, and was thirty-five years of age. His oval face and 
the delicate mould of his features indicated a modest, thoughtful, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 313 

and refined nature. He was constitutionally timid, with a sensitive 
conscience and great religious susceptibilities. He was a finished 
scholar, and might have gained a literary reputation ; but he had 
chosen another career, and one for which he seemed but ill fitted. 
Physically, however, he was well matched with his work ; for, 
though his frame was slight, he was so active, that none of the 
Indians could surpass him in running. 

With him were two young men, Rene Goupil and Guillaume 
Couture, domih of the mission, ^ — that is to say, laymen who, from 
a religious motive and without pay, had attached themselves to 
the service of the Jesuits. Goupil had formerly entered upon 
the Jesuit novitiate at Paris, but failing health had obliged him to 
leave it. As soon as he was able, he came to Canada, offered his 
services to the Superior of the mission, was employed for a time 
in the humblest offices, and afterwards became an attendant at the 
hospital. At length, to his delight, he received permission to go 
up to the Hurons, where the surgical skill which he had acquired 
was greatly needed ; and he was now on his way thither. His 
companion. Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and 
of a character equally disinterested. Both were, like Jogues, in 
the foremost canoes ; while the fourth Frenchman was with the 
unconverted Hurons, in the rear. 

The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of 
St. Peter, where it is filled with innumerable islands. The forest 
was close on their right, they kept near the shore to avoid the cur- 
rent, and the shallow water before them was covered with a dense 
growth of tall bulrushes. Suddenly the silence was ' frightfully 
broken. The war-whoop rose from among the rushes, mingled 
with the reports of guns and the whistling of bullets ; and several 
Iroquois canoes, filled with warriors, pushed out from their con- 
cealment, and bore down upon Jogues and his companions. The 
Hurons in the rear were seized with a shameful panic. They 
leaped ashore ; left canoes, baggage, and weapons ; and fled into 
the woods. The French and the Christian Hurons made fight for 
a time ; but when they saw another fleet of canoes approaching 
from the opposite shores or islands, they lost heart, and those 
escaped who could. Goupil was seized amid triumphant yells, as 



314 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

were also several of the Huron converts. Jogues sprang into the 
bulrushes, and might have escaped ; but when he saw Goupil and 
the neophytes in the clutches of the Iroquois, he had no heart to 
abandon them, but came out from his hiding-place, and gave him- 
self up to the astonished victors. A few of them had remained to 
guard the prisoners ; the rest were chasing the fugitives. Jogues 
mastered his agony, and began to baptize those of the captive 
converts who desired baptism. 

Couture had eluded pursuit ; but when he thought of Jogues 
and of what perhaps awaited him, he resolved to share his fate, 
and, turning, retraced his steps. As he approached, five Iroquois 
ran forward to meet him ; and one of them snapped his gun at 
his breast, but it missed fire. In his confusion and excitement, 
Couture fired his own piece, and laid the savage dead. The re- 
maining four sprang upon him, stripped off all his clothing, tore 
away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his fingers with the 
fury of famished dogs, and thrust a sword through one of his 
hands. Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend, 
threw his arms about his neck. The Iroquois dragged him away, 
beat him with their fists and war-clubs till he was senseless, and, 
when he revived, lacerated his fingers with their teeth, as they 
had done those of Couture. Then they turned upon Goupil, and 
treated him with the same ferocity. The Huron prisoners were 
left for the present unharmed. More of them were brought in 
every moment, till at length the number of captives amounted in 
all to twenty-two, while three Hurons had been killed in the fight 
and pursuit. The Iroquois, about seventy in number, now em- 
barked with their prey ; but not until they had knocked on the 
head an old Huron, whom Jogues, with his mangled hands, had 
just baptized, and who refused to leave the place. Then, under a 
burning sun, they crossed to the spot on which the town of Sorel 
now stands, at the mouth of the river Richelieu, where they 
encamped. 

Their course was southward, up the River Richelieu and Lake 
Champlain ; thence, by way of Lake George, to the Mohawk 
towns. The pain and fever of their wounds, and the clouds of 
mosquitoes, which they could not drive off, left the prisoners no 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 315 

peace by day nor sleep by night. On the eighth day, they learned 
that a large Iroquois war-party, on their way to Canada, were near 
at hand ; and they soon approached their camp, on a small island 
near the southern end of Lake Champlain. The warriors, two 
hundred in number, saluted their victorious countrymen with vol- 
leys from their guns ; then, armed with clubs and thorny sticks, 
ranged themselves in two lines, between which the captives were 
compelled to pass up the side of a rocky hill. On the way, they 
were beaten with such fury, that Jogues, who was last in the line, 
fell powerless, drenched in blood and half dead. As the chief man 
among the French captives, he fared the worst. His hands were 
again mangled, and fire applied to his body ; while the Huron 
chief, Eustache, was subjected to tortures even more atrocious. 
When, at night, the exhausted sufferers tried to rest, the young 
warriors came to lacerate their wounds and pull out their hair 
and beards. 

In the morning they resumed their journey. And now the lake 
narrowed to the semblance of a tranquil river. Before them was 
a woody mountain, close on their right a rocky promontory, and 
between these flowed a stream, the outlet of Lake George. On 
those rocks, more than a hundred years after, rose the ramparts 
of Ticonderoga. They landed, shouldered their canoes and bag- 
gage, took their way through the woods, passed the spot where 
the fierce Highlanders and the dauntless regiments of England 
breasted in vain the storm of lead and fire, and soon reached the 
shore where Abercrombie landed and Lord Howe fell. First of 
white men, Jogues and his companions gazed on the romantic lake 
that bears the name, not of its gentle discoverer, but of the dull 
Hanoverian king. Like a fair Naiad of the wilderness, it slum- 
bered between the guardian mountains that breathe from crag and 
forest the stern poetry of war. But all then was solitude ; and the 
clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the deadly crack of the 
rifle had never as yet awakened their angry echoes. 



i6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

[Born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803 ; died at Concord, Massa- 
chusetts, April 27, 1882] 

CONCORD HYMN 
Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood. 

And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone ; 
That memory may their deed redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 

To die, and leave their children free, 
Bid Time and Nature gently spare 

The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



THE RHODORA 

ON BEING ASKED WHENCE IS THE FLOWER 

In May, when sea winds pierced our solitudes, 
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 
To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
The purple petals, fallen in the pool. 
Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 317 

Here might the redbird come his plumes to cool, 

And court the flower that cheapens his array. 

Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : 

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! 

I never thought to ask, I never knew : 

But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 

The self-same Power that brought me there brought you, 

THE HUMBLE-BEE 

Burly, dozing humble-bee, 
Where thou art is clime for me. 
Let them sail for Porto Rique, 
Far-off heats through seas to seek ; 
I will follow thee alone. 
Thou animated torrid zone ! 
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, 
Let me chase thy waving lines ; 
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 
Singing over shrubs and vines. 

Insect lover of the sun, 
Joy of thy dominion ! 
Sailor of the atmosphere ; 
Swimmer through the waves of air ; 
Voyager of light and noon ; 
Epicurean of June ; 
Wait, I prithee, till I come 
Within earshot of thy hum, — 
All without is martyrdom. 

When the south wind, in May days, 
With a net of shining haze 
Silvers the horizon wall, 
• " And with softness touching all, 



3i8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Tints the human countenance 
With the color of romance, 
And infusing subtle heats, 
Turns the sod to violets. 
Thou, in sunny solitudes, 
Rover of the underwoods, 
The green silence dost displace 
With thy mellow, breezy bass. 

Hot midsummer's petted crone. 
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone 
Tells of countless sunny hours. 
Long days, and solid banks of flowers ; 
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound 
Of Indian wildernesses found ; 
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure. 
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure. 

Aught unsavory or unclean 
Hath my insect never seen ; 
But violets and bilberry bells. 
Maple-sap and daffodils. 
Grass with green grass half-mast high, 
Succory to match the sky. 
Columbine with horn of honey. 
Scented fern and agrimony. 
Clover, catchfly, adder's tongue 
And brier-roses dwelt among ; 
All beside was unknown waste, 
All was picture as he passed. 

Wiser far than human seer. 
Yellow-breeched philosopher 
Seeing only what is fair. 
Sipping only what is sweet. 
Thou dost mock at fate and care. 
Leave the chaff and take the wheat. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 319 

When the fierce northwestern blast 
Cools sea and land so far and fast, 
Thou already slumberest deep ; 
Woe and want thou canst outsleep ; 
Want and woe, which torture us, 
Thy sleep makes ridiculous. 

GOOD-BYE 

Good-bye, proud world ! I 'm going home : 
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine. 
Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; 
A river-ark on the ocean brine, 
Long I 've been tossed like the driven foam ; 
But now, proud world ! I 'm going home. 

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face ; 

To Grandeur with his wise grimace ; 

To upstart Wealth's averted eye ; 

To supple Ofiice, low and high ; 

To crowded halls, to court and street ; 

To frozen hearts and hasting feet ; 

To those who go, and those who come ; 

Good-bye, proud world ! I 'm going home. 

I am going to my own hearth-stone. 
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, — 
A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned ; 
Where arches green, the livelong day. 
Echo the blackbird's roundelay. 
And vulgar feet have never trod 
A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
And when I am stretched beneath the pines. 
Where the evening star so holy shines. 



320 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
At the sophist schools and the learned clan ; 
For what are they all, in their high conceit. 
When man in the bush with God may meet ? 



EACH AND ALL 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown 

Of thee from the hill top looking down ; 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm. 

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; 

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse, and lists with delight. 

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height ; 

Nor knowest thou what argument 

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 

All are needed by each one ; 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 

Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 

I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; 

He sings the song, but it cheers not now. 

For I did not bring home the river and sky ; 

He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 

The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 

The bubbles of the latest wave 

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave. 

And the bellowing of the savage sea 

Greeted their safe escape to me. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam, 

I fetched my sea-born treasures home ; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 

Had left their beauty on the shore 

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 

The lover watched his graceful maid. 

As mid the virgin train she strayed. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 321 

Nor knew her beauty's best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 

At last she came to his hermitage, 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage ; 

The gay enchantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

Then I said, " I covet truth ; 

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat ; 

I leave it behind with the games of youth : " 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Running over the club moss burs ; 

I inhaled the violet's breath ; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 

Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground ; 

Over me soared the eternal sky. 

Full of light and of deity ; 

Again I saw, again I heard. 

The rolling river, the morning bird ; 

Beauty through my senses stole ; 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 

THE SNOW-STORM 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky. 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the house mates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

Come, see the north wind's masonry. 
Out of an unseen quarry evermore 
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
Curves his white bastions with projected roof 



322 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. 

Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 

So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he 

For number or proportion. Mockingly, 

On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ; 

A swanlike form invests the hidden thorn ; 

Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 

Mauger the farmer's sighs ; and at the gate 

A tapering turret overtops the work. 

And when his hours are numbered, and the world 

Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 

Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 

Built in an age, the mad wind's night work, 

The frolic architecture of the snow. 

APRIL 

The April winds are magical 

And thrill our tuneful frames ; 

The garden walks are passional 

To bachelors and dames. 

The hedge is gemmed with diamonds, 

The air with Cupids full. 

The cobweb clues of Rosamond 

Guide lovers to the pool. 

Each dimple in the water, 

Each leaf that shades the rock 

Can cozen, pique and flatter, 

Can parley and provoke. 

Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, 

Know more than any book, 

Down with your doleful problems, 

And court the sunny brook. 

The south-winds are quick-witted. 

The schools are sad and slow. 

The masters quite omitted 

The lore we care to know. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 323 

FORBEARANCE 

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ? 

Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk ? 

At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse ? 

Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust ? 

And loved so well a high behavior, 

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, 

Nobility more nobly to repay ? 

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine ! 

FABLE 

The mountain and the squirrel 

Had a quarrel, 

And the former called the latter " Little Prig ; " 

Bun replied, 

" You are doubtless very big ; 

But all sorts of things and weather 

Must be taken in together, 

To make up a year 

And a sphere. 

And I think it no disgrace 

To occupy my place. 

If I 'm not so large as you, 

You are not so small as I, 

And not half so spry. 

I '11 not deny you make 

A very pretty squirrel track ; 

Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put ; 

If I cannot carry forests on my back, 

Neither can you crack a nut." 



324 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE ENCHANTER 

In the deep heart of man a poet dwells 

Who all the day of life his summer story tells ; 

Scatters on every eye dust of his spells, 

Scent, form, and color ; to the flowers and shells 

Wins the believing child with wondrous tales ; 

Touches a cheek with colors of romance. 

And crowds a history into a glance ; 

Gives beauty to the lake and fountain, 

Spies oversea the fires of the mountain ; 

When thrushes ope their throat, 't is he that sings, 

And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings. 

The little Shakespeare in the maiden's heart 

Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart ; 

Opens the eye to Virtue's starlike meed 

And gives persuasion to a gentle deed. 

WOODNOTES 
SELECTIONS 

'T was one of the charmed days 

When the genius of God doth flow, 

The wind may alter twenty ways, 

A tempest cannot blow ; 

It may blow north, it still is warm ; 

Or south, it still is clear ; 

Or east, it smells like a clover-farm ; 

Or west, no thunder fear. 

The musing peasant lowly great 

Beside the forest water sate ; 

The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown 

Composed the network of his throne ; 

The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, 

Was burnished to a floor of glass. 

Painted with shadows green and proud 

Of the tree and of the cloud. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 325 

He was the heart of all the scene ; 

On him the sun looked more serene ; 

To hill and cloud his face was known, — 

It seemed the likeness of their own ; 

They knew by secret sympathy 

The public child of earth and sky, 

" You ask," he said, "' what guide 

Me through trackless thickets led, 

Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. 

I found the water's bed. 

The watercourses were my guide ; 

I travelled grateful by their side, 

Or through their channel dry ; 

They led me through the thicket damp, 

Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp, 

Through beds of granite cut my road. 

And their resistless friendship showed : 

The falling waters led me, 

The foodful waters fed me. 

And brought me to the lowest land. 

Unerring to the ocean sand. 

The moss upon the forest bark 

Was pole-star when the night was dark ; 

The purple berries in the wood 

Supplied me necessary food ; 

For Nature ever faithful is 

To such as trust her faithfulness. 

When the forest shall mislead me, 

When the night and morning lie. 

When sea and land refuse to feed me, 

'T will be time enough to die ; 

Then will yet my mother yield 

A pillow in her greenest field. 

Nor the June flowers scorn to cover 

The clay of their departed lover." 



326 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 
THE SONG OF THE PINE-TREE 

" Heed the old oracles, 

Ponder my spells ; 

Song wakes in my pinnacles 

When the wind swells. 

Soundeth the prophetic wind, 

The shadows shake on the rock behind, 

And the countless leaves of the pine are strings 

Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings. 

Hearken ! Hearken ! 
If thou wouldst know the mystic song 
Chanted when the sphere was young. 
Aloft, abroad, the paean swells ; 
O wise man ! hear'st thou half it tells .-' 
O wise man ! hear'st thou the least part .'' 
'T is the chronicle of art. 
To the open ear it sings 
Sweet the genesis of things, 
Of tendency through endless ages, 
Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages. 
Of rounded worlds, of space and time, 
Of the old flood's subsiding slime, 
Of chemic matter, force and form, 
Of poles and powers, cold, wet and warm : 
The rushing metamorphosis 
Dissolving all that fixture is. 
Melts things that be to things that seem. 
And solid nature to a dream. 
O, listen to the undersong, 
The ever old, the ever young ; 
And, far within those cadent pauses, 
The chorus of the ancient Causes ! 
Delights the dreadful Destiny 
To fling his voice into the tree, 
And shock thy weak ear with a note 
Breathed from the everlasting throat. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 327 

In music he repeats the pang 

Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang. 

O mortal ! thy ears are stones ; 

These echoes are laden with tones 

Which only the pure can hear ; 

Thou canst not catch what they recite 

Of Fate and Will, of Want and Right, 

Of man to come, of human life. 

Of Death and Fortune, Growth and Strife." 



VOLUNTARIES 

******* 

In an age of fops and toys, 

Wanting wisdom, void of right, 

Who shall nerve heroic boys 

To hazard all in Freedom's fight, — 

Break sharply off their jolly games. 

Forsake their comrades gay 

And quit proud homes and youthful dames 

For famine, toil and fray ? 

Yet on the nimble air benign 

Speed nimbler messages. 

That waft the breath of grace divine 

To hearts in sloth and ease. 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust. 

So near is God to man, 

When duty whispers low, T/iou must, 

The youth replies, / can. 

O, well for the fortunate soul 
Which Music's wings infold, 
Stealing away the memory 
Of sorrows new and old ! 
Yet happier he whose inward sight, 
Stayed on his subtile thought. 
Shuts his sense on toys of time. 
To vacant bosoms brought. 



328 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But best befriended of the God 

He who, in evil times, 

Warned by an inward voice, 

Heeds not the darkness and the dread, 

Biding by his rule and choice, 

Feeling only the fiery thread 

Leading over heroic ground, 

Walled with mortal terror round, 

To the aim which him allures, 

And the sweet heaven his deed secures. 

Peril around, all else appalling, 

Cannon in front and leaden rain 

Him duty through the clarion calling 

To the van called not in vain. 

Stainless soldier on the walls. 

Knowing this, — and knows no more, — 

Whoever fights, whoever falls. 

Justice conquers evermore. 

Justice after as before, — 

And he who battles on her side, 

God, though he were ten times slain. 

Crowns him victor glorified, 

Victor over death and pain. 

SELF-RELIANCE 

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter 
which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears 
an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The 
sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may 
contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true 
for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. 
Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense ; 
for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, — and our first 
thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judg- 
ment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 329 

merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at 
naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what 
they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam 
of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the 
luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses with- 
out notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius 
we recognize our own rejected thoughts : they come back to us 
with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more 
affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our 
spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most 
when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. ¥Ase, to-morrow 
a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we 
have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take 
with shame our own opinion from another. 

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the 
conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide ; that 
he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion ; that 
though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing 
corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot 
of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides 
in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which 
he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing 
one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, 
and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without 
preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should 
fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express 
ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us 
represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good 
issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work 
made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he 
has put his heart into his work and done his best ; but what he 
has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliver- 
ance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts 
him ; no muse befriends ; no invention, no hope. 

Trust thyself : every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept 
the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of 
your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have 



330 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of 
their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy 
was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predomi- 
nating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept 
in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny ; and not minors 
and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a 
revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the 
Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark. 

What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face 
and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes ! That divided 
and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arith- 
metic has computed the strength and means opposed to our pur- 
pose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet 
unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. 
Infancy conforms to nobody : all conform to it, so that one babe 
commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play 
to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less 
with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious 
and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not 
think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and 
me. Hark ! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and em- 
phatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. 
Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us seniors very 
unnecessary. 

The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would 
disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is 
the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what 
the pit is in the playhouse ; independent, irresponsible, looking 
out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries 
and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way 
of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. 
He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests ; he 
gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him : he 
does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail 
by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken 
with eclat he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or 
the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 331 

account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again 
into his neutrahty ! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and having 
observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, un- 
bribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. He 
would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to 
be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of 
men, and put them in fear. 

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow 
faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere 
is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. 
Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for 
the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender 
the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request 
is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities 
and creators, but names and customs. 

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who 
would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name 
of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at 
last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to 
yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remem- 
ber an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make 
to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear 
old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do 
with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within ? my 
friend suggested : " But these impulses may be from below, not 
from above." I replied : " They do not seem to me to be such ; 
but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil," 
No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad 
are but names very readily transferable to that or this ; the only 
right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is 
against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposi- 
tion, as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am 
ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, 
to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well- 
spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought 
to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If 
malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass .■' 



332 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and 
comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I 
not say to him : "Go love thy infant ; love thy wood-chopper : 
be good-natured and modest : have that grace ; and never varnish 
your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness 
for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at 
home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth 
is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must 
have some edge to it, — else it is none. The doctrine of hatred 
must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when 
that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and 
brother, when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of 
the door-post. Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at 
last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not 
to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, 
do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put 
all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor .? I tell thee, 
thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the 
cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I 
do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual 
affinity I am bought and sold ; for them I will go to prison, if need 
be ; but your miscellaneous popular charities ; the education at 
college of fools ; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end 
to which many now stand ; alms to sots ; and the thousandfold 
Relief Societies ; — - though I confess with shame I sometimes 
succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and 
by I shall have the manhood to withhold. 

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than 
the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called 
a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they 
would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. 
Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living 
in the world, — as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their 
virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My 
life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it 
should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that 
it should be glittering and unsteady, I wish it to be sound and 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 333 

sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence 
that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his 
actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether 
I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent, I 
cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic 
right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do 
not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any 
secondary testimony. 

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people 
think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, 
may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and mean- 
ness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who 
think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is 
easy in the world to live after the world's opinion ; it is easy in 
solitude to live after our own ; but the great man is he who in the 
midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence 
of solitude. 

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead 
to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs 
the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, 
contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for 
the government or against it, spread your table like base house- 
keepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the 
precise man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn 
from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. 
Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must con- 
sider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know 
your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce 
for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of 
his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he 
say a new and spontaneous word } Do I not know that, with all 
this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he 
will do no such thing ? Do I not know that he is pledged to him- 
self not to look but at one side, — the permitted side, not as a man, 
but as a parish minister ? He is a- retained attorney, and these airs 
of the bench are the emptiest affectation. Well, most men have 
bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached 



334 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This 
conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of 
a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not 
quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real 
four ; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not 
where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to 
equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. 
We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by de- 
grees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying ex- 
perience in particular which does not fail to wreak itself also in the 
general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced 
smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease 
in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, 
not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping willfulness, 
grow tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable 
sensation. 

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. 
And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The 
bystanders look askance on him in the public street or in the 
friend's parlor. If this aversation had its origin in contempt and 
resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad coun- 
tenance ; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, 
have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and 
a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more 
formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy 
enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of 
the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they 
are timid as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their 
feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the 
ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute 
force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, 
it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike 
as a trifle of no concernment. 

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency ; 
a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others 
have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and 
we are loth to disappoint them. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 335 

But why should you keep your head over your shoulder ? Why 
drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict some- 
what you have stated in this or that public place ? Suppose you 
should contradict yourself ; when then ? It seems to be a rule of 
wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts 
of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thou- 
sand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics 
you have denied personality to the Deity ; yet when the devout 
motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they 
should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as 
Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee. 

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by 
little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a 
great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern him- 
self with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in 
hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard 
words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. — 
"Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." — Is it so bad, 
then, to be misunderstood ? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and 
Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and 
Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To 
be great is to be misunderstood. 

I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his 
will are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of 
Andes and Himmaleh are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. 
Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like 
an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza ; — read it forward, backward, 
or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite 
wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest 
thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will 
be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My 
book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. 
The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or 
straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what 
we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they 
communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not 
see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. 



336 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so 
they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, 
the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These 
varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of 
thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best 
ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a suffi- 
cient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. 
Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other 
genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, 
and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Great- 
ness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do 
right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to 
defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn 
appearances, and you always may. The force of character is cumu- 
lative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. 
What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, 
which so fills the imagination ? The consciousness of a train of 
great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on the 
advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. 
That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's voice, and dignity 
into Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye. Honor is 
venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient 
virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love 
it and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love and 
homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an 
old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person. 

I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and 
consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. 
Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the 
Spartan fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man 
is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him ; I wish 
that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, 
and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us 
affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid content- 
ment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and 
office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is 
a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 337 

works ; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is 
the center of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures 
you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, everybody in society 
reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, 
reality, reminds you of nothing else ; it takes place of the whole 
creation. The man must be so much, that he must make all cir- 
cumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and 
an age ; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to 
accomplish his design ; — and posterity seem to follow his steps as 
a train of clients. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have 
a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow 
and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue and the 
possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one 
man ; as Monachism, of the hermit Antony ; the Reformation, 
of Luther ; Quakerism, of Fox ; Methodism, of Wesley ; Aboli- 
tion, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called " the height of Rome " ; 
and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a 
few stout and earnest persons. 

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. 
Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a 
charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists 
for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself 
which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a 
marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, 
a statue, a costly book, have an alien and forbidding air, much like 
a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, " Who are you. Sir ? " 
Yet they all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his facul- 
ties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits 
for my verdict : it is not to command me, but I am to settle its 
claims to praise. That popular fable of the sot who was picked up 
dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke's house, washed and 
dressed and laid in the duke's bed, and, on his waking, treated 
with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he 
had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact, that it symbolizes 
so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but 
now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, and finds himself a 
true prince. 



338 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history, our 
imagination plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and 
estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in 
a small house and common day's work ; but the things of life are 
the same to both ; the sum total of both is the same. Why all 
this deference to Alfred, and Scanderbeg, and Gustavus.? Sup- 
pose they were virtuous ; did they wear out virtue ? As great 
a stake depends on your private act to-day, as followed their 
public and renowned steps. When private men shall act with 
original views, the luster will be transferred from the actions of 
kings to those of gentlemen. 

The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so mag- 
netized the eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal 
symbol the mutual reverence that is due from man to man. The 
joyful loyalty with which men have everywhere suffered the king, 
the noble, or the great proprietor to walk among them by a law of 
his own, make his own scale of men and things, and reverse theirs, 
pay for benefits not with money but with honor, and represent the 
law in his person, was the hieroglyphic by which they obscurely 
signified their consciousness of their own right and comeliness, 
the right of every man. 

The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained 
when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee .? 
What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be 
grounded ? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling 
star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a 
ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark 
of independence appear ? The inquiry leads us to that source, at 
once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call 
Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as In- 
tuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, 
the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their 
common origin. For, the sense of being which in calm hours rises, 
we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from 
space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them, and 
proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and be- 
ing also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist, and 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 339 

afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we 
have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of 
thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man 
wisdom, and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. 
We he in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers 
of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, 
when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a pas- 
sage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry 
into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or 
its absence is all we can affirm. Every man discriminates between 
the voluntary acts of his mind, and his involuntary perceptions, 
and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. 
He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things 
are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My willful actions 
and acquisitions are but roving ; — the idlest reverie, the faintest 
native emotion, command my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless 
people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of 
opinions, or rather much more readily ; for, they do not distinguish 
between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see 
this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, it is fatal. If 
I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time, 
all mankind, — although it may chance that no one has seen it 
before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun. 
The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it 
is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God 
speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things ; 
should fill the world with his voice ; should scatter forth light, 
nature, time, souls, from the center of the present thought ; and 
new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, 
and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, — means, 
teachers, texts, temples, fall ; it lives now, and absorbs past and 
future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by rela- 
tion to it, — one as much as another. All things are dissolved to 
their center by their cause, and, in the universal miracle, petty and 
particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man claims to know 
and speak of God, and carries you backward to the phraseology of 
some old moldered nation in another country, in another world, 



340 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its 
fullness and completion ? Is the parent better than the child into 
whom he has cast his ripened being ? Whence, then, this worship 
of the past ? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and 
authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors 
which the eye makes, but the soul is light ; where it is, is day ; 
where it was, is night ; and history is an impertinence and an in- 
jury, if it be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable 
of my being and becoming. 

Man is timid and apologetic ; he is no longer upright ; he dares 
not say " I think," " I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He 
is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These 
roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to 
better ones ; they are for what they are ; they exist with God 
to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose ; 
it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud 
has burst, its whole life acts ; in the full-blown flower there is no 
more ; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, 
and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones 
or remembers ; he does not live in the present, but with reverted 
eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, 
stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and 
•strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time. 

This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects 
dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology 
of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not 
always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We 
are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames 
and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men and talents and 
character they chance to see, — painfully recollecting the exact 
words they spoke ; afterwards, when they come into the point of 
view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand 
them, and are willing to let the words go ; for, at any time, they 
can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we 
shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as 
it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, 
we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 341 

as old rubbish. When a man Hves with God, his voice shall be 
as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. 

And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains 
unsaid ; probably cannot be said ; for all that we say is the far-off 
remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now 
nearest approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when 
you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed 
way ; you shall not discern the footprints of any other ; you shall 
not see the face of man ; you shall not hear any name ; — the 
way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It 
shall exclude example and experience. You take the way from 
man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its forgotten 
ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There is somewhat 
low even in hope. In the hour of vision, there is nothing that can 
be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion 
beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence 
of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things 
go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South 
Sea, — long intervals of time, years, centuries, — ^are of no account. 
This which I think and feel underlay every former state of life 
and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is 
called life, and what is called death. 

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the 
instant of repose ; it resides in the moment of transition from a 
past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to 
an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes ; for 
that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all repu- 
tation to shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus 
and Judas equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance ? 
Inasmuch as the soul is present, there will be power not confident 
but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. 
Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is. Who 
has more obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise 
his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. 
We fancy it rhetoric, when we speak of eminent virtue. We do 
not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company 
of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature 



342 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, 
poets, who are not. 

This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as 
on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed One. 
Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it con- 
stitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into 
all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they 
contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, 
personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples 
of its presence and impure action. I see the same law working 
in nature for conservation and growth. Power is in nature the 
essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in 
her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and matura- 
tion of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering 
itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and 
vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufificing, and therefore 
self-relying soul. 

Thus all concentrates : let us not rove ; let us sit at home with 
the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men 
and books and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine 
fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God 
is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility 
to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune 
beside our native riches. 

But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, 
nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in com- 
munication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup 
of water of the urns of other men. We must go alone, I like the 
silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. 
How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each 
one with a precinct or sanctuary ! So let us always sit. Why 
should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or 
child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the 
same blood ? All men have my blood, and I have all men's. Not 
for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent 
of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechani- 
cal, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 343 

world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic 
trifles. Friend, chent, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock 
at once at thy closet door, and say, " Come out unto us." But 
keep thy state ; come not into their confusion. The power men 
possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man 
can come near me but through my act. " What we love that we 
have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love." 

If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and 
faith, let us at least resist our temptations ; let us enter into the 
state of war, and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, 
in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by 
speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. 
Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving 
people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, 

wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appear- 
ances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto 
you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. 

1 will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to 
nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste hus- 
band of one wife, — but these relations I must fill after a new 
and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be 
myself, I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you 
can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, 
I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my 
tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, 
that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly 
rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love 
you ; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical 
attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, 
cleave to your companions ; I will seek my own. I do this not 
selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, 
and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. 
Does this sound harsh to-day ? You will soon love what is dic- 
tated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, 
it will bring us out safe at last. But so may you give these friends 
pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save 
their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason. 



344 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

when they look out into the region of absolute truth ; then will 
they justify me, and do the same thing. 

The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is 
a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism ; and the bold 
sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But 
the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in 
one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill 
your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct, or in the 
reflex way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to 
father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog ; whether any 
of these can upbraid you. But I may also neglect this reflex stand- 
ard, and absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims and 
perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to many offices that 
are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts, it enables me 
to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that this 
law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day. 

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast 
off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust 
himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear 
his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to 
himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron 
necessity is to others ! 

If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by dis- 
tinction society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew 
and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become tim- 
orous, desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of 
fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields 
no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall 
renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are 
insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of 
all proportion to their practical force, and do lean and beg day 
and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, 
our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, 
but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun 
the rugged battle of fdte, where strength is born. 

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose 
all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is mined. If 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 345 

the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed 
in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of 
Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that 
he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest 
of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who 
in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, 
keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, 
buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like 
a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He 
walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not " studying 
a profession," for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. 
He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a Stoic open 
the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, 
but can and must detach themselves ; that with the exercise of 
self-trust, new powers shall appear ; that a man is the word made 
flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be 
ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from 
himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out of 
the window, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him, — 
and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and 
make his name dear to all history. 

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolu- 
tion in all the offices and relations of men ; in their religion ; in 
their education ; in their pursuits ; their modes of living ; their 
association ; in their property ; in their speculative views. 

I. In what prayers do men allow themselves ! That which they 
call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks 
abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some 
foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and 
supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves 
a particular commodity, — anything less than all good, — is vicious. 
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest 
point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. 
It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as 
a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes 
dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the 
man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer 



346 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to 
weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his 
oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap 
ends. Caratach, in Fletcher's Bonduca, when admonished to 
inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies, — 

" His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors ; 
Our valors are our best gods." 

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the 
want of self-reliance : it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if 
you can thereby help the sufferer ; if not, attend your own work, 
and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just 
as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and 
cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in 
rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication 
with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. 
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. 
For him all doors are flung wide : him all tongues greet, all 
honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to 
him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicit- 
ously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he 
held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love 
him because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said 
Zoroaster, "the blessed Immortals are swift." 

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds 
a disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, 
" Let not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any 
man with us, and we will obey." Everywhere I am hindered of 
meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple 
doors, and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's 
brother's God. Every new mind is a new classification. If it prove 
a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a 
Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on other 
men, and lo ! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the 
thought, and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings 
within reach of the pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this 
apparent in creeds and churches, which are also classifications of 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 347 

some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought of duty, and 
man's relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, 
Swedenborgism. The pupil takes the same delight in subordinat- 
ing everything to the new terminology, as a girl who has just learned 
botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will hap- 
pen for a time, that the pupil will find his intellectual power has 
grown by the study of his master's mind. But in all unbalanced 
minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the end, and not for 
a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend 
to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe ; 
the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their mas- 
ter built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to 
see, — how you can see ; "It must be somehow that you stole the 
light from us." They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, 
indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them 
chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, 
presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, 
will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and 
joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe 
as on the first morning. 

2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, 
whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all 
educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece 
venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they 
were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty 
is our place. The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, 
and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from 
his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make 
men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the 
missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a 
sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet. 

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, 
for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man 
is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of find- 
ing somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, 
or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from him- 
self, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, 



348 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated 
as they. He carries ruins to ruins. 

Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us 
the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples,' at 
Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I 
pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last 
wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad 
self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and 
the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, 
but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. 

3. But the rage of traveling is a symptom of a deeper unsound- 
ness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vaga- 
bond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds 
travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate ; 
and what is imitation but the traveling of the mind ? Our houses 
are built with foreign taste ; our shelves are garnished with foreign 
ornaments ; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow 
the Past and the Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they 
have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his 
model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be 
done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy 
the Doric or the Gothic model ? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of 
thought, and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if 
the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing 
to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of 
the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the govern- 
ment, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves 
fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also. 

Insist on yourself ; never imitate. Your own gift you can present 
every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation ; 
but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporane- 
ous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his 
Maker can teach him. No man yet' knows what it is, nor can, till 
that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have 
taught Shakespeare ? Where is the master who could have instructed 
Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Nev^on ? Every great man 
is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 349 

not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shake- 
speare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too 
much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utter- 
ance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or 
trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but differ- 
ent from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, 
with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself ; but if you can 
hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the 
same pitch of voice ; for the ear and the tongue are two organs 
of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, 
obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again. 

4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so 
does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the 
improvement of society, and no man improves. 

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it 
gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes ; it is bar- 
barous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific ; 
but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, 
something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old in- 
stincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, 
thinking American, with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange 
in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a 
club, a spear, a mat, and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep 
under! But compare the health of the two men, and you shall see 
that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength. If the traveler 
tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad ax, and in a day or two 
the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft 
pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave. 

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his 
feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of 
muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to 
tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, 
and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man 
in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he 
does not observe ; the equinox he knows as little ; and the whole 
bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His 
notebooks impair his memory ; his libraries overload his wit ; the 



350 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

insurance office increases the number of accidents ; and it may 
be a question whether machinery does not encumber ; whether 
we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity 
intrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild vir- 
tue. For every Stoic was a Stoic ; but in Christendom where is 
the Christian ? 

There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the 
standard of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever 
were. A singular equality may be observed between the great 
men of the first and of the last ages ; nor can all the science, art, 
religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate 
greater men than Plutarch's heroes, three or four and twenty cen- 
turies ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, 
Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He 
who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but 
will be his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect. The 
arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not 
invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may com- 
pensate its good. Hudson and Bering accomplished so much in 
their fishing boats as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equip- 
ment exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an 
opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena 
than any one since. Columbus found the New World in an un- 
decked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perish- 
ing of means and machinery, which were introduced with loud 
laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns 
to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of the art of 
war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon conquered 
Europe by the bivouac, which consisted of falling back on naked 
valor, and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it 
impossible to make a perfect army, says Las Casas, "without 
abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and carriages, 
until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should re- 
ceive his supply of corn, grind it in his handmill, and bake his 
bread himself." 

Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of 
which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 351 

from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The 
persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their 
experience with them. 

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on 
governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men 
have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that 
they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institu- 
tions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, 
because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure 
their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what 
each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, 
out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what he 
has, if he see that it is accidental, — came to him by inheritance, 
or gift, or crime ; then he feels that it is not having ; it does not 
belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, because 
no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man 
is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is 
living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, 
or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually 
renews itself wherever the man breathes. "Thy lot or portion of 
life," said the Caliph Ali, " is seeking after thee ; therefore be 
at rest from seeking after it." Our dependence on these foreign 
goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. The political 
parties meet in numerous conventions ; the greater the concourse, 
and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from 
Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of 
Maine ! The young patriot feels himself stronger than before by 
a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers 
summon conventions, and vote and resolve in multitude. Not so, 
O friends ! will the god deign to enter and inhabit you, but by 
a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts off all 
foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and 
to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a 
man better than a town .? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless 
mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the up- 
holder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is 
inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him 



352 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on 
his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, 
commands his limbs, works miracles ; just as a man who stands 
on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head. 

So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, 
and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave 
as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the 
chancelors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast 
chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear 
from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery 
of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other 
favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days 
are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring 
you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the 
triumph of principles. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

[Born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804; died at Plymouth, New Hamp- 
shire, May 19, 1864] 

THE GRAY CHAMPION 
From " Twice-Told Tales " 

There was once a time when New England groaned under the 
actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which 
brought on the Revolution. James II, the bigoted successor of 
Charles the Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colo- 
nies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our 
liberties and endanger our religion. The administration of Sir 
Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of tyranny : 
a Governor and Council, holding office from the King, and wholly 
independent of the country ; laws made and taxes levied without 
concurrence of the people immediate or by their representatives ; 
the rights of private citizens violated, and the titles of all landed 
property declared void ; the voice of complaint stifled by restric- 
tions on the press ; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the first 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 353 

band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. For 
two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial 
love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother 
country, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Protector, 
or Popish Monarch. Till these evil times, however, such allegiance 
had been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, 
enjoying far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the 
native subjects of Great Britain. 

At length a rumor reached our shores that the Prince of Orange 
had ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the 
triumph of civil and religious rights and the salvation of New Eng- 
land. It was but a doubtful whisper ; it might be false, or the at- 
tempt might fail ; and, in either case, the man that stirred against 
King James would lose his head. Still, the intelligence produced 
a marked effect. The people smiled mysteriously in the streets, 
and threw bold glances at their oppressors ; while, far and wide, 
there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the slightest signal 
would rouse the whole land from its sluggish despondency. Aware 
of their danger, the rulers resolved to avert it by an imposing dis- 
play of strength, and perhaps to confirm their despotism by yet 
harsher measures. One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir Edmund 
Andros and his favorite councillors, being warm with wine, 
assembled the redcoats of the Governor's Guard, and made their 
appearance in the streets of Boston. The sun was near setting 
when the march commenced. 

The roll of the drum, at that unquiet crisis, seemed to go through 
the streets, less as the martial music of the soldiers, than as a 
muster-call to the inhabitants themselves. A multitude, by various 
avenues, assembled in King Street, which was destined to be the 
scene, nearly a century afterwards, of another encounter between 
the troops of Britain and a people struggling against her tyranny. 
Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the Pilgrims 
came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and 
sombre features of their character, perhaps more strikingly in such 
a stern emergency than on happier occasions. There were the sober 
garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed 
expression, the scriptural forms of speech, and the confidence 



354 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in Heaven's blessing on a righteous cause, which would have 
marked a band of the original Puritans, when threatened by some 
peril of the wilderness. Indeed, it was not yet time for the old 
spirit to be extinct ; since there were men in the street that day 
who had worshipped there beneath the trees, before a house was 
reared to the God for whom they had become exiles. Old soldiers 
of the Parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought 
that their aged arms might strike another blow against the house 
of Stuart. Here, also, were the veterans of King Philip's war, 
who had burned villages and slaughtered young and old, with 
pious fierceness, while the godly souls throughout the land were 
helping them with prayer. Several ministers were scattered among 
the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs, regarded them with such 
reverence, as if there were sanctity in their very garments. These 
holy men exerted their influence to quiet the people, but not to 
disperse them. Meantime, the purpose of the Governor, in dis- 
turbing the peace of the town at a period when the slightest 
commotion might throw the country into a ferment, was almost 
the universal subject of inquiry, and variously explained. 

"Satan will strike his master-stroke presently," cried some, "be- 
cause he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors are 
to be dragged to prison ! We shall see them at a Smithfield fire 
in King Street ! " 

Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their 
minister, who looked calmly upward and assumed a more apostolic 
dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his 
profession — a crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied at 
that period that New England might have a John Rogers of her 
own to take the place of that worthy in the Primer. 

" The Pope of Rome has given orders for a new St. Bartholo- 
mew ! " cried others. " We are to be massacred, man and male 
child ! " 

Neither was this rumor wholly discredited, although the wiser 
class believed the Governor's object somewhat less atrocious. His 
predecessor under the old charter, Bradstreet, a venerable com- 
panion of the first settlers, was known to be in town. There were 
grounds for conjecturing that Sir Edmund Andros intended, at 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 355 

once, to strike terror, by a parade of military force, and to con- 
found the opposite faction by possessing himself of their chief. 

"Stand firm for the old charter, Governor! " shouted the crowd, 
seizing upon the idea. " The good old Governor Bradstreet ! " 

While this cry was at the loudest, the people were surprised by 
the well-known figure of Governor Bradstreet himself, a patriarch 
of nearly ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door, 
and, with characteristic mildness, besought them to submit to 
the constituted authorities. 

" My children," concluded this venerable person, " do nothing 
rashly. Cry not aloud, but pray for the welfare of New England, 
and expect patiently what the Lord will do in this matter ! " 

The event was soon to be decided. All this time, the roll of the 
drum had been approaching through Cornhill, louder and deeper, 
till with reverberations from house to house, and the regular tramp 
of martial footsteps, it burst into the street. A double rank of sol- 
diers made their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the 
passage, with shouldered matchlocks, and matches burning, so as 
to present a row of fires in the dusk. Their steady march was like 
the progress of a machine, that would roll irresistibly over every- 
thing in its way. Next, moving slowly, with a confused clatter of 
hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of mounted gentlemen, the 
central figure being Sir Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect and 
soldier-like. Those around him were his favorite councillors, and 
the bitterest foes of New England, At his right hand rode Edward 
Randolph, our arch-enemy, that "blasted wretch," as Cotton 
Mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient gov- 
ernment, and was followed with a sensible curse, through life and 
to his grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering jests and 
mockery as he rode along. Dudley came behind, with a downcast 
look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the 
people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among 
the oppressors of his native land. The captain of a frigate in the 
harbor, and two or three civil officers under the Crown, were also 
there. But the figure which most attracted the public eye, and 
stirred up the deepest feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of 
King's Chapel, riding haughtily among the magistrates in his 



356 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

priestly vestments, the fitting representative of prelacy and perse- 
cution, the union of Church and State, and all those abominations 
which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness. Another guard 
of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear. 

The whole scene was a picture of the condition of New Eng- 
land, and its moral, the deformity of any government that does 
not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the peo- 
ple. On one side the religious multitude, with their sad visages 
and dark attire, and on the other, the group of despotic rulers, with 
the high churchman in the midst, and here and there a crucifix at 
their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of 
unjust authority, and scoffing at the universal groan. And the mer- 
cenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, 
showed the only means by which obedience could be secured. 

" O Lord of Hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, " provide 
a Champion for thy people ! " 

This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald's cry, 
to introduce a remarkable personage. The crowd had rolled back, 
and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the 
street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of 
its length. The intervening space was empty — a paved solitude, 
between lofty edifices, which threw almost a twilight shadow over 
it. Suddenly, there was seen the figure of an ancient man, who 
seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking 
by himself along the centre of the street, to confront the armed 
band. He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark cloak and a steeple- 
crowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a 
heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the 
tremulous gait of age. 

When at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned 
slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty, rendered doubly 
venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. He 
made a gesture at once of encouragement and warning, then turned 
again, and resumed his way. 

" Who is this gray patriarch ? " asked the young men of their sires. 

" Who is this venerable brother ? " asked the old men among 
themselves. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 357 

But none could make reply. The fathers of the people, those 
of fourscore years and upwards, were disturbed, deeming it 
strange that they should forget one of such evident authority, 
whom they must have known in their early days, the associate 
of Winthrop, and all the old councillors, giving laws, and mak- 
ing prayers, and leading them against the savage. The elderly 
men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray 
in their youth, as their own were now. And the young ! How 
could he have passed so utterly from their memories — that 
hoary sire, the relic of long-departed times, whose awful bene- 
diction had surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads, in 
childhood ? 

" Whence did he come ? What is his purpose ? Who can this 
old man he? " whispered the wondering crowd. 

Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing 
his solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near 
the advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon 
his ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the 
decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving 
him in gray but unbroken dignity. Now, he marched onward 
with a warrior's step, keeping time to the military music. Thus 
the aged form advanced on one side, and the whole parade of 
soldiers and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty 
yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff by the 
middle and held it before him like a leader's truncheon. 

" Stand ! " cried he. 

The eye, the face and attitude of command, the solemn yet war- 
like peal of that voice — fit either to rule a host in the battle-field 
or be raised to God in prayer — were irresistible. At the old man's 
word and outstretched arm the roll of the drum was hushed at once 
and the advancing line stood still, A tremulous enthusiasm seized 
upon the multitude. That stately form, combining the leader and 
the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could 
only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause whom 
the oppressor's drum had summoned from his grave. They raised 
a shout of awe and exultation, and looked for the deliverance of 
New England. 



358 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The governor and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving them- 
selves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if 
they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right 
against the hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, 
but, glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encom- 
passed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One 
would have thought that the dark old man was chief ruler there, 
and that the governor and council with soldiers at their back, 
representing the whole power and authority of the crown, had 
no alternative but obedience. 

" What does this old fellow here .-' " cried Edward Randolph, 
fiercely. " On, Sir Edmund ! Bid the soldiers forward and give 
the dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen — 
to stand aside or be trampled on." 

" Nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grandsire," said 
Bullivant, laughing. "' See you not, he is some old round-headed 
dignitary, who hath lain asleep these thirty years, and knows 
nothing of the change of times ? Doubtless, he thinks to put us 
down with a proclamation in Old Noll's name ! " 

'" Are you mad, old man ? " demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in 
loud and harsh tones. " How dare you stay the march of King 
James's Governor ? " 

" I have stayed the march of a king himself, ere now," replied 
the gray figure, with stern composure. '" I am here, Sir Governor, 
because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my 
secret place ; and beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it 
was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the good old 
cause of his saints. And what speak ye of James .'' There is no 
longer a Popish tyrant on the throne of England, and by to-morrow 
noon his name shall be a byword in this very street, where ye would 
make it a word of terror. Back, thou that wast a Governor, back ! 
With this night thy power is ended, — to-morrow, the prison ! — 
back, lest I foretell the scaffold ! " 

The people had been drawing nearer and nearer, and drinking 
in the words of their champion, who spoke in accents long dis- 
used, like one unaccustomed to converse, except with the dead of 
many years ago. But his voice stirred their souls. They confronted 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 359 

the soldiers, not wholly without arms, and ready to convert the 
very stones of the street into deadly weapons. Sir Edmund Andros 
looked at the old man ; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over 
the multitude, and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so 
difficult to kindle or to quench ; and again he fixed his gaze on 
the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, where 
neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What were his thoughts, 
he uttered no word which might discover. But whether the op- 
pressor were overawed by the Gray Champion's look, or perceived 
his peril in the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that 
he gave back, and ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and 
guarded retreat. Before another sunset, the Governor, and all that 
rode so proudly with him, were prisoners, and long ere it was 
known that James had abdicated, King William was proclaimed 
throughout New England. 

But where was the Gray Champion ? Some reported that, when 
the troops had gone from King Street, and the people were throng- 
ing tumultuously in their rear, Bradstreet, the aged Governor, was 
seen to embrace a form more aged than his own. Others soberly 
affirmed, that while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of 
his aspect, the old man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly 
into the hues of twilight, till, where he stood, there was an empty 
space. But all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. The men 
of that generation watched for his reappearance, in sunshine and 
in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his funeral 
passed, nor where his gravestone was. 

And who was the Gray Champion .? Perhaps his name might be 
found in the records of that stern Court of Justice, which passed 
a sentence, too mighty for the age, but glorious in all after-times, 
for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high example to 
the subject. I have heard, that whenever the descendants of the 
Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears 
again. When eighty years had passed, he walked once more in 
King Street. Five years later, in the twilight of an April morning, 
he stood on the green, beside the meeting-house, at Lexington, 
where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab of slate inlaid, com- 
memorates the first fallen of the Revolution. And when our fathers 



36o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker's Hill, all through that 
night the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be, 
ere he comes again ! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, 
and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the in- 
vader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come, 
for he is the type of New England's hereditary spirit ; and his 
shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge, 
that New England's sons will vindicate their ancestry. 



A RILL FROM THE TOWN-PUMP 

From " Twice-Told Tales " 

[Scene, the corner of two principal streets, the Town-Pump talking through 

its nose] 

Noon by the north clock ! Noon by the east ! High noon, too, 
by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head 
and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under 
my nose. Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it ! 
And among all the town-officers chosen at March meeting, where 
is he that sustains for a single year the burden of such manifold 
duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the town-pump .? The 
title of " town-treasurer " is rightfully mine, as guardian of the 
best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought 
to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the 
pauper without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head 
of the fire department and one of the physicians to the board of 
health. As a keeper of the peace all water-drinkers will confess 
me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the 
town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are posted 
on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of 
the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to 
my brother-officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright and 
impartial discharge of my business and the constancy with which 
I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain, 
for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the 
market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike, and at 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 361 

night I hold a lantern over my head both to show where I am 
and keep people out of the gutters. At this sultry noontide I 
am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron 
goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dramseller on the mall at 
muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest accents 
and at the very tiptop of my voice. 

Here it is, gentlemen ! Here is the good liquor ! Walk up, 
walk up, gentlemen ! Walk up, walk up ! Here is the superior 
stuff ! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam — better 
than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer or wine of any price ; 
here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to 
pay ! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves ! 

It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here 
they come. A hot day, gentlemen ! Quaff and away again, so as 
to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need 
another cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick 
there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged 
half a score of miles to-day, and like a wise man have passed by 
the taverns and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. 
Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have 
been burned to a cinder or melted down to nothing at all, in the 
fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink and make room for that other fellow, 
who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's pota- 
tions, which he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most 
rubicund sir ! You and I have been great strangers, hitherto ; 
nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer 
intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. 
Mercy on you, man ! the water absolutely hisses down your red- 
hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam, in the miniature tophet, 
which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the 
word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any 
kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for 
a swig half so delicious .'' Now, for the first time these ten years, 
you know the flavor of cold water. Good by ; and, whenever you 
are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply, at the old 
stand. Who next .-■ O, my little friend, you are let loose from 
school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown 



362 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other school-boy 
troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump, Take it, pure as 
the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and 
tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now ! There, 
my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this 
elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones, 
that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What ! he limps by, 
without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were 
meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir, 
— no harm done, I hope ! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter ; 
but, when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair 
of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it 
is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red 
tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on 
his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how 
lightly he capers away again ! Jowler, did your worship ever 
have the gout .-' 

Are you all satisfied ? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends ; 
and, while my spout has a moment's leisure, I will delight the 
town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath 
a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of 
the leaf-strewn earth in the very spot where you now behold me 
on the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear and 
deemed as precious as liquid diamonds. The Indian sagamores 
drank of it from time immemorial till the fatal deluge of the fire- 
water burst upon the red men and swept their whole race away 
from the cold fountains. Endicott and his followers came next, 
and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the 
spring. The richest goblet then was of birch-bark. Governor 
Winthrop, after a journey afoot from Boston, drank here out of 
the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm, 
and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. For many 
years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the wash-bowl of 
the vicinity, — whither all decent folks resorted, to purify their 
visages, and gaze at them afterwards — at least, the pretty maidens 
did — in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath days, whenever 
a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 363 

placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house, 
which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus, 
one generation after another was consecrated to Heaven by its 
waters, and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy 
bosom, and vanished from the earth, as if mortal life were but a 
flitting image in a fountain. Finally, the fountain vanished also. 
Cellars were dug on all sides and cart-loads of gravel flung upon 
its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle 
at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, when its refresh- 
ment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten 
birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But in the course of 
time a town-pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring ; 
and when the first decayed, another took its place, and then 
another, and still another, — till here stand I, gentlemen and 
ladies, to serv^e you with my iron goblet. Drink, and be refreshed ! 
The water is as pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of 
the red sagamore, beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem 
of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no 
shadow falls, but from the brick buildings. And be it the moral 
of my story, that, as this wasted and long-lost fountain is now 
known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too 
little valued since your father's days — be recognized by all. 

Your pardon, good people ! I must interrupt my stream of elo- 
quence and spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough 
for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from 
Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business 
is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look ! how rapidly they 
lower the watermark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious 
stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece and they can 
afford time to breathe it in with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now 
they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous 
drinking-vessel. An ox is your true toper. 

But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the 
remainder of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect 
of modesty if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my 
own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The 
better you think of me, the better men and women you will find 



364 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing- 
days, though on that account alone I might call myself the house- 
hold god of a hundred families. Far be it from me also to hint, 
my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would 
present, without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind 
you how often when the midnight bells make you tremble for your 
combustible town, you have fled to the Town Pump, and found 
me always at my post, firm amid the confusion, and ready to drain 
my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay 
much stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as the physician, 
whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore, 
which has found men sick or left them so, since the days of Hip- 
pocrates. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence 
on mankind. 

No ; these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men 
concede to me, — if not in my single self, yet as the representa- 
tive of a class — of being the grand reformer of the age. From 
my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall 
cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish, which 
has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. In this mighty 
enterprise, the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water ! 
The Town Pump and the Cow ! Such is the glorious copartner- 
ship, that shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot 
the vineyards, shatter the cider-presses, ruin the tea and coffee 
trade, and finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. 
Blessed consummation ! Then Poverty shall pass away from the 
land, finding no hovel so wretched, where her squalid form may 
shelter herself. Then disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw 
its own heart and die. Then sin, if she do not die, shall lose half 
her strength. Until now the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged 
in the human blood, transmitted from sire to son and rekindled in 
every generation by fresh draughts of liquid flame. When that 
inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but 
grow cool, and war — the drunkenness of nations — perhaps will 
cease. At least, there will be no war of households. The husband 
and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy — a calm bliss of temperate 
affections shall pass hand in hand through life and lie down not 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 365 

reluctantly at its protracted close. To them the past will be no tur- 
moil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments 
as follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces shall 
express what their spirits were and are to be by a lingering smile 
of memory and hope. 

Ahem ! Dry work, this speechifying, especially to an unprac- 
ticed orator. I never conceived till now what toil the temperance 
lecturers undergo for my sake ; hereafter they shall have the busi- 
ness to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or 
two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir ! My dear hearers, 
when the world shall have been regenerated by my instrumentality, 
you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into one great 
pile and make a bonfire in honor of the town-pump. And when 
I shall have decayed like my predecessors, then, if you revere my 
memory, let a marble fountain richly sculptured take my place upon 
the spot. Such monuments should be erected everywhere and 
inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my 
cause. Now, listen, for something very important is to come next. 

There are two or three honest friends of mine — and true friends, 
I know, they are — who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in 
my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose or even 
a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure 
which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. 
Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and 
take up the honorable cause of the Town Pump in the style of a 
toper, fighting for his brandy-bottle ? Or, can the excellent quali- 
ties of cold water be not othenvise exemplified, than by plunging 
slapdash into hot water, and wofully scalding yourselves and other 
people .'* Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are 
to wage, — and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives, — you 
cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never per- 
mitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and mani- 
fold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep, calm 
well of purity, which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour 
out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. 

One o'clock ! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, 
I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of 



366 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she 
draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old. 
Hold out your vessel, my dear ! There it is, full to the brim ; so 
now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher, as you 
go ; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink — 
" Success to the Town Pump ! " 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

[Born at Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807; died at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, March 24, 1882] 

A PSALM OF LIFE 
What the Heart of the Young Man said to the Psalmist 

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
Life is but an empty dream ! — 

For the soul is dead that slumbers. 
And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 

And the grave is not its goal ; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

Was not spoken of the soul. • 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

Is our destined end or way ; 
But to act, that each to-morrow 

Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting. 

And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of Life, 
Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 

Be a hero in the strife ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 367 

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 

Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
Act, — act in the Hving Present ! 

Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time ; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing. 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 



THE LIGHT OF STARS 

The night is come, but not too soon ; 

And sinking silently. 
All silently, the little moon 

Drops down behind the sky. 

There is no light in earth or heaven 
But the cold light of stars ; 

And the first watch of night is given 
To the red planet Mars. 

Is it the tender star of love ? 

The star of love and dreams ? 
O no ! from that blue tent above, 

A hero's armor gleams. 



368 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And earnest thoughts within me rise, 

When I behold afar, 
Suspended in the evening skies, 

The shield of that red star. 

star of strength ! I see thee stand 
And smile upon my pain ; 

Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, 
And I am strong again. 

Within my breast there is no light 
But the cold light of stars ; 

1 give the first watch of the night 

To the red planet Mars, 

The star of the unconquered will, 

He rises in my breast. 
Serene, and resolute, and still. 

And calm, and self-possessed. 

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, 
That readest this brief psalm. 

As one by one thy hopes depart, 
Be resolute and calm. 

Oh, fear not in a world like this. 
And thou shalt know erelong. 

Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong. 



FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS 

When the hours of Day are numbered. 
And the voices of the Night 

Wake the better soul, that slumbered. 
To a holy, calm delight ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 369 

Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 

And, like phantoms grim and tall, 
Shadows from the fitful firelight 

Dance upon the parlor wall ; 

Then the forms of the departed 

Enter at the open door ; 
The beloved, the true-hearted. 

Come to visit me once more ; 

He, the young and strong, who cherished 

Noble longings for the strife. 
By the roadside fell and perished. 

Weary with the march of life ! 

They, the holy ones and weakly. 

Who the cross of suffering bore, 
Folded their pale hands so meekly. 

Spake with us on earth no more ! 

And with them the Being Beauteous, 

Who unto my youth was given. 
More than all things else to love me, 

And is now a saint in heaven. 

With a slow and noiseless footstep 

Comes that messenger divine. 
Takes the vacant chair beside me, 

Lays her gentle hand in mine. 

And she sits and gazes at me 

With those deep and tender eyes, 
Like the stars, so still and saint-like. 

Looking downward from the skies. 

Uttered not, yet comprehended. 

Is the spirit's voiceless prayer, 
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended. 

Breathing from her lips of air. 



370 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, 
All my fears are laid aside. 

If I but remember only 

Such as these have lived and died ! 



HYMN TO THE NIGHT 

I heard the trailing garments of the Night 

Sweep through her marble halls ! 
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 

From the celestial walls ! 

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 

Stoop o'er me from above ; 
The calm, majestic presence of the Night, 

As of the one I love. 

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight. 

The manifold, soft chimes, 
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, 

Like some old poet's rhymes. 

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air 

My spirit drank repose ; 
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there, — 

From those deep cisterns flows. 

O holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear 

What man has borne before ! 
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 

And they complain no more. 

Peace ! Peace ! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer ! 

Descend with broad-winged flight. 
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, 

The best-beloved Night ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 371 

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR 

" Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest !' 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
St'ill in rude armor drest, 

Comest to daunt me ! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms, 

Why dost thou haunt me ? " 

Then from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 
As when the Northern skies 

Gleam in December ; 
And, like the water's flow 
Under December's snow, 
Came a dull voice of woe 

From the heart's chamber. 

'" I was a Viking old ! 

My deeds, though manifold. 

No Skald in song has told. 

No Saga taught thee ! 
Take heed, that in thy verse 
Thou dost the tale rehearse. 
Else dread a dead man's curse ; 

For this I sought thee. 

'" Far in the Northern Land, 
By the wild Baltic's strand, 
I, with my childish hand. 

Tamed the gerfalcon ; 
And, with my skates fast bound, 
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, 
That the poor whimpering hound 

Trembled to walk on. 



372 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" Oft to his frozen lair 
Tracked I the grisly bear, 
While from my path the hare 

Fled like a shadow ; 
Oft through the forest dark 
Followed the were-wolf's bark, 
Until the soaring lark 

Sang from the meadow. 

" But when I older grew, 
Joining a corsair's crew, 
O'er the dark sea I flew 

With the marauders. 
Wild was the life we led ; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 

By our stern orders. 

" Many a wassail-bout 
Wore the long Winter out ; 
Often our midnight shout 

Set the cocks crowing. 
As we the Berserk's tale 
Measured in cups of ale, 
Draining the oaken pail, 

Filled to o'erflowing, 

" Once as I told in glee 
Tales of the stormy sea. 
Soft eyes did gaze on me. 

Burning yet tender ; 
And as the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine. 
On that dark heart of mine 

Fell their soft splendor. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 373 

" I wooed the blue-eyed maid, 
Yielding, yet half afraid. 
And in the forest's shade 

Our vows were plighted. 
Under its loosened vest 
Fluttered her little breast, 
Like birds within their nest 

By the hawk frighted. 

" Bright in her father's hall 
Shields gleamed upon the wall, 
Loud sang the minstrels all, 

Chanting his glory ; 
When of old Hildebrand 
I asked his daughter's hand, 
Mute did the minstrels stand 

To hear my story. 

" While the brown ale he quaffed, 
Loud then the champion laughed, 
And as the wind gusts waft 

The sea foam brightly. 
So the loud laugh of scorn. 
Out of those lips unshorn. 
From the deep drinking horn 

Blew the foam lightly, 

" She was a Prince's child, 

I but a Viking wild. 

And though she blushed and smiled, 

I was discarded ! 
Should not the dove so white 
Follow the sea mew's flight ? 
Why did they leave that night 

Her nest unguarded ? 



374 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" Scarce had I put to sea, 
Bearing the maid with me, — 
Fairest of all was she 

Among the Norsemen ! — 
When on the white sea strand, 
Waving his armed hand. 
Saw we old Hildebrand, 

With twenty horsemen. 

" Then launched they to the blast, 
Bent like a reed each mast, 
Yet we were gaining fast, 

When the wind failed us ; 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came round the gusty Skaw, 
So that our foe we saw 

Laugh as he hailed us. 

'" And as to catch the gale 
Round veered the flapping sail, 
' Death ! ' was the helmsman's hail, 

" Death without quarter ! ' 
Mid-ships with iron keel 
Struck we her ribs of steel ; 
Down her black hulk did reel 

Through the black water 1 

" As with his wings aslant, 
Sails the fierce cormorant. 
Seeking some rocky haunt, 

With his prey laden, — 
So toward the open main, 
Beating to sea again, 
Through the wild hurricane, 

Bore I the maiden. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 375 

" Three weeks we westward bore, 
And when the storm was o'er, 
Cloud-hke we saw the shore 

Stretching to leeward ; 
There for my lady's bower 
Built I the lofty tower, 
Which, to this very hour, 

Stands looking seaward. 



" There lived we many years ; 
Time dried the maiden's tears ; 
She had forgot her fears. 

She was a mother ; 
Death closed her mild blue eyes ; 
Under that tower she lies ; 
Ne'er shall the sun arise 

On such another. 

"' Still grew my bosom then, 
Still as a stagnant fen ! 
Hateful to me were men. 

The sunlight hateful ! 
In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warlike gear, 
Fell I upon my spear, 

Oh, death was grateful ! 

" Thus, seamed with many scars, 
Bursting these prison bars, 
Up to its native stars 

My soul ascended ! 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul, 
Skoal ! to the Northland ! skoal ! 

Thus the tale ended. 



376 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE RAINY DAY 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, 
And the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall. 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 



ENDYMION 

The rising moon has hid the stars ; 

Her level rays, like golden bars, 
Lie on the landscape green. 
With shadows brown between. 

And silver white the river gleams, 
As if Diana, in her dreams. 
Had dropt her silver bow 
Upon the meadows low. 

On such a tranquil night as this, 
She woke Endymion with a kiss. 
When, sleeping in the grove, 
He dreamed not of her love. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 377 

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, 
Love gives itself, but is not bought ; 

Nor voice, nor sound betrays 

Its deep, impassioned gaze. 

It comes, — the beautiful, the free, 
The crown of all humanity, — 

In silence and alone 

To seek the elected one. 

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep 
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, 

And kisses the closed eyes 

Of him who slumbering lies. 

O weary hearts ! O slumbering eyes ! 
O drooping souls, whose destinies 

Are fraught with fear and pain, 

Ye shall be loved again ! 

No one is so accursed by fate, 
No one so utterly desolate. 

But some heart, though unknown, 

Responds unto its own. 

Responds, — as if with unseen wings 

An angel touched its quivering strings ; 
And whispers, in its song, 
" Where hast thou stayed so long ? " 

MAIDENHOOD 

Maiden ! with the meek, brown eyes, 
In whose orbs a shadow lies 
Like the dusk in evening skies ! 

Thou whose locks outshine the sun, 
Golden tresses, wreathed in one. 
As the braided streamlets run ! 



378 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Standing, with reluctant feet, 
Where the brook and river meet. 
Womanhood and childhood fleet ! 

Gazing, with a timid glance, 
On the brooklet's swift advance, 
On the river's broad expanse ! 

Deep and still, that gliding stream 
Beautiful to thee must seem, 
As the river of a dream. 

Then why pause with indecision. 
When bright angels in thy vision 
Beckon thee to fields Elysian ? 

Seest thou shadows sailing by. 
As the dove, with startled eye, 
Sees the falcon's shadow fly ? 

Hearest thou voices on the shore. 
That our ears perceive no more. 
Deafened by the cataract's roar ? 

Oh, thou child of many prayers ! 

Life hath quicksands, — Life hath snares ! 

Care and age come unawares ! 

Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
Morning rises into noon. 
May glides onward into June. 

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered 
Birds and blossoms many-numbered ; — 
Age, that bough with snows encumbered. 

Gather, then, each flower that grows, 
When the young heart overflows, 
To embalm that tent of snows. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 379 

Bear a lily in thy hand ; 

Gates of brass cannot withstand 

One touch of that magic wand. 

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, 
In thy heart the dew of youth, 
On thy lips the smile of truth. 

Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal 
Into wounds that cannot heal, 
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal ; 

And that smile, like sunshine, dart 
Into many a sunless heart. 
For a smile of God thou art. 



SERENADE FROM "THE SPANISH STUDENT" 

Stars of the summer night ! 

Far in yon azure deeps. 
Hide, hide your golden light ! 
She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps ! 

Moon of the summer night ! 

Far down yon western steeps, 
Sink, sink in silver light ! 
She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps ! 

Wind of the summer night ! 

Where yonder woodbine creeps, 
Fold, fold thy pinions light ! 
She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps ! 



38o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Dreams of the summer night ! 

Tell her, her lover keeps 
Watch ! while in slumbers light 

She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 

Sleeps ! 

SLEEP 

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound 

Seems from some faint yEolian harp-string caught ; 
Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought 
As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound 

The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound ; 
For I am weary, and am overwrought 
With too much toil, with too much care distraught, 
And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. 

Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, 

peaceful Sleep ! until from pain released 

1 breathe again uninterrupted breath ! 
Ah, with what subtle meaning did the Greek 

Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast 
Whereof the greater mystery is death ! 



THE POET'S TALE 
From " Tales of a Wayside Inn " 
THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 

It was the season when through all the land 
The merle and mavis build, and building sing 

Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand. 

Whom Saxon Csedmon calls the Blithe-heart King ; 

When on the boughs the purple buds expand, 
The banners of the vanguard of the Spring, 

And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap, 

And wave their fluttering signals from the steep. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 381 

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, 

Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee ; 

The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud 
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be ; 

And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, 
Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly. 

Knowing who hears the raven's cry, and said : 

" Give us, O Lord, this day, our daily bread ! " 

Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed, 

Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet 

Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed 

The village with the cheers of all their fleet ; 

Or quarrelling together, laughed and railed 
Like foreign sailors, landed in the street 

Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise 

Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys. 

Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, 

In fabulous days, some hundred years ago ; 
And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth. 

Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, 
That mingled with the universal mirth, 

Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe ; 
They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words 
To swift destruction the whole race of birds. 

And a town-meeting was convened straightway 

To set a price upon the guilty heads 
Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, 

Levied black-mail upon the garden-beds 
And cornfields, and beheld without dismay 

The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds ; 
The skeleton that waited at their feast, 
Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased. 



382 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Then from his house, a temple painted white, 
With fluted columns, and a roof of red, 

The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight ! 
Slowly descending, with majestic tread, 

Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right, 
Down the long street he walked, as one who said, 

" A town that boasts inhabitants like me 

Can have no lack of good society ! " 

The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere, 
The instinct of whose nature was to kill ; 

The wrath of God he preached from year to year. 
And read with fervor, Edwards on the Will ; 

His favorite pastime was to slay the deer 
In summer on some Adirondac hill ; 

E'en now, while walking down the rural lane. 

He lopped the wayside lilies with his cane. 

From the Academy, whose belfry crowned 
The hill of Science with its vane of brass, 

Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round. 

Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, 

And all absorbed in reveries profound 
Of fair Almira in the upper class. 

Who was, as in a sonnet he had said. 

As pure as water, and as good as bread. 

And next the Deacon issued from his door. 
In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow ; 

A suit of sable bombazine he wore ; 

His form was ponderous, and his step was slow ; 

There never was so wise a man before ; 

He seemed the incarnate " Well, I told you so ! " 

And to perpetuate his great renown 

There was a street named after him in town. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 383 

These came together in the new town-hall, 
With sundry farmers from the region round. 

The Squire presided, dignified and tall. 

His air impressive and his reasoning sound. 

Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small ; 
Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found. 

But enemies enough, who every one 

Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun. 

When they had ended, from his place apart 
Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong. 

And, trembling like a steed before the start, 

Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng ; 

Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart 

To speak out what was in him, clear and strong. 

Alike regardless of their smile or frown. 

And quite determined not to be laughed down : 

" Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, 

From his Republic banished without pity 
The Poets. In this little town of yours. 

You put to death, by means of a Committee, 
The ballad-singers and the troubadours, 

The street-musicians of the heavenly city, 
The birds, who make sweet music for us all 
In our dark hours, as David did for Saul. 

" The thrush that carols at the dawn of day 
From the green steeples of the piny wood; 

The oriole in the elm ; the noisy jay, 
Jargoning like a foreigner at his food ; 

The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray. 
Flooding with melody the neighborhood ; 

Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng 

That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song ; 



384 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" You slay them all ! And wherefore ? For the gain 
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, 

Or rye, or barley, or some other gVain, 

Scratched up at random by industrious feet, 

Searching for worm or weevil after rain ! 
Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet 

As are the songs the uninvited guests 

Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts. 

" Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these ? 

Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught 
The dialect they speak, where melodies 

Alone are the interpreters of thought ? 
Whose household words are songs in many keys. 

Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught ! 
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even 
Are halfway houses on the road to heaven ! 

" Think, every morning when the sun peeps through 
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, 

How jubilant the happy birds renew 
Their old, melodious madrigals of love ! 

And when you think of this, remember too 
'T is always morning somewhere, and above 

The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 

Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 

" Think of your woods and orchards without birds ! 

Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams 
As in an idiot's brain remembered words 

Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams ! 
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 

Make up for the lost music, when your teams 
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more 
The feathered gleaners follow to your door .? 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 385 

" What ! would you rather see the incessant stir 

Of insects in the windrows of the hay, 
And hear the locust and the grasshopper 

Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play ? 
Is this more pleasant to you than the whir 

Of meadow-lark, and her sweet roundelay. 
Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take 
Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake ? 

"' You call them thieves and pillagers ; but know. 
They are the winged wardens of your farms, 

Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe. 
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms ; 

Even the blackest of them all, the crow. 
Renders good service as your man-at-arms. 

Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail. 

And crying havoc on the slug and snail. 

'" How can I teach your children gentleness. 

And mercy to the weak, and reverence 
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, 

Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, 
Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less 

The selfsame light, although averted hence. 
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, 
You contradict the very things I teach ? " 

With this he closed ; and through the audience went 
A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves ; 

The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent 
Their yellow heads together like their sheaves ; 

Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment 

Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves. 

The birds were doomed ; and, as the record shows, 

A bounty offered for the heads of crows. 



386 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There was another audience out of reach, 
Who had no voice nor vote in making laws, 

But in the papers read his little speech, 

And crowned his modest temples with applause ; 

They made him conscious, each one more than each. 
He still was victor, vanquished in their cause. 

Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, 

O fair Almira at the Academy ! 

And so the dreadful massacre began ; 

O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests. 
The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran. 

Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts. 
Or wounded crept away from sight of man, 

While the young died of famine in their nests ; 
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words. 
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds ! 

The Summer came, and all the birds were dead ; 

The days were like hot coals ; the very ground 
Was burned to ashes ; in the orchards fed 

Myriads of caterpillars, and around 
The cultivated fields and garden beds 

Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found 
No foe to check their march, till they had made 
The land a desert without leaf or shade. 

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town, 
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly 

Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down 
The canker-worms upon the passers-by, 

Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown. 
Who shook them off with just a little cry ; 

They were the terror of each favorite walk, 

The endless theme of all the village talk. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 387 

The farmers grew impatient, but a few 

Confessed their error, and would not complain. 

For after all, the best thing one can do 
When it is raining, is to let it rain. 

Then they repealed the law, although they knew 
It would not call the dead to life again ; 

As school-boys, finding their mistake too late. 

Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. 

That year in Killingworth the Autumn came 

Without the light of his majestic look, 
The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, 

The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day book. 
A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame. 

And drowned themselves despairing in the brook, 
While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, 
Lamenting the dead children of the air ! 

But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen, 

A sight that never yet by bard was sung. 
As great a wonder as it would have been 

If some dumb animal had found a tongue ! 
A wagon, overarched with evergreen. 

Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung. 
All full of singing-birds, came down the street, 
Filling the air with music wild and sweet. 

From all the country round these birds were brought. 

By order of the town, with anxious quest. 
And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought 

In woods and fields the places they loved best. 
Singing loud canticles, which many thought 

Were satires to the authorities addressed. 
While others, listening in green lanes, averred 
Such lovely music never had been heard ! 



388 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But blither still and louder carolled they 

Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know 

It was the fair Almira's wedding-day, 
And everywhere, around, above, below. 

When the Preceptor bore his bride away, 
Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow. 

And a new heaven bent over a new earth 

Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. 



THE SICILIAN'S TALE 

From " Tales of a Wayside Inn " 

KING ROBERT OF SICILY 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane 

And Valmond, Emperor of AUemaine, 

Apparelled in magnificent attire. 

With retinue of many a knight and squire, 

On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat 

And heard the priests chant the Magnificat. 

And as he listened, o'er and o'er again 

Repeated, like a burden or refrain. 

He caught the words, ''Dcposiiit poteiites 

De sedc, ct cxaltavit Jmniiles ; " 

And slowly lifting up his kingly head 

He to a learned clerk beside him said, 

"What mean these words ? " The clerk made answer meet, 

" He has put down the mighty from their seat, 

And has exalted them of low degree." 

Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully, 

" 'T is well that such seditious words are sung 

Only by priests and in the Latin tongue ; 

For unto priests and people be it known, 

There is no power can push me from my throne ! " 

And leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep. 

Lulled by the chant monotonous and deep. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 389 

When he awoke, it was already night ; 

The church was empty, and there was no Hght, 

Save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint, 

Lighted a little space before some saint. 

He started from his seat and gazed around, 

But saw no living thing and heard no sound. 

He groped towards the door, but it was locked ; 

He cried aloud, and listened, and then knocked. 

And uttered awful threatenings and complaints. 

And imprecations upon men and saints. 

The sounds reechoed from the roof and walls 

As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls. 

At length the sexton, hearing from without 
The tumult of the knocking and the shout, 
And thinking thieves were in the house of prayer, 
Came with his lantern, asking, " Who is there ? " 
Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said, 
" Open : 't is I, the King ! Art thou afraid } " 
The frightened sexton, muttering, with a curse, 
" This is some drunken vagabond, or worse ! " 
Turned the great key and flung the portal wide ; 
A man rushed by him at a single stride, 
Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak, 
Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke. 
But leaped into the blackness of the night. 
And vanished like a spectre from his sight. 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane 
And Valmond, Emperor of AUemaine, 
Despoiled of his magnificent attire. 
Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire. 
With sense of wrong and outrage desperate. 
Strode on and thundered at the palace gate ; 
Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage 
To right and left each seneschal and page. 



390 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And hurried up the broad and sounding stair, 
His white face ghastly in the torches' glare. 
From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed ; 
Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed. 
Until at last he reached the banquet-room, 
Blazing with light, and breathing with perfume. 

There on the dais sat another king, 
Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet-ring, 
King Robert's self in features, form, and height, 
But all transfigured with angelic light ! 
It was an Angel ; and his presence there 
With a divine effulgence filled the air. 
An exaltation, piercing the disguise. 
Though none the hidden Angel recognize. 

A moment speechless, motionless, amazed. 

The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed. 

Who met his look of anger and surprise 

With the divine compassion of his eyes ; 

Then said, " Who art thou .-• and why com'st thou here .-' " 

To which King Robert answered with a sneer, 

"" I am the King, and come to claim my own 

From an impostor, who usurps my throne ! " 

And suddenly, at these audacious words, 

Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords ; 

The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, 

" Nay, not the King, but the King's Jester, thou 

Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape, 

And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape ; 

Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, 

And wait upon my henchmen in the hall ! " 

Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers. 
They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs ; 
A group of tittering pages ran before, 
And as they opened wide the folding-door. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 391 

His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms, 
The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, 
And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring 
With the mock plaudits of " Long live the King ! " 

Next morning, waking with the day's first beam, 
He said within himself, " It was a dream ! " 
But the straw rustled as he turned his head ; 
There were the cap and bells beside his bed ; 
Around him rose the bare, discolored walls ; 
Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls, 
And in the corner, a revolting shape. 
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape. 
It was no dream ; the world he loved so much 
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch ! 

Days came and went ; and now returned again 

To Sicily the old Saturnian reign ; 

Under the Angel's governance benign 

The happy island danced with corn and wine. 

And deep within the mountain's burning breast 

Enceladus, the giant, was at rest. 

Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate, 

Sullen and silent and disconsolate. 

Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear. 

With look bewildered and a vacant stare. 

Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn, 

By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn. 

His only friend the ape, his only food 

What others left, — he still was unsubdued. 

And when the Angel met him on his way. 

And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, 

Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel 

The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, 

'" Art thou the King ? " the passion of his woe 

Burst from him in resistless overflow, 



392 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling 

The haughty answer back, " I am, I am the King ! " 



Almost three years were ended ; when there came 

Ambassadors of great repute and name 

From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 

Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane 

By letter summoned them forthwith to come 

On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome. 

The Angel with great joy received his guests, 

And gave them presents of embroidered vests, 

And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined, 

And rings and jewels of the rarest kind. 

Then he departed with them o'er the sea 

Into the lovely land of Italy, 

Whose loveliness was more resplendent made 

By the mere passing of that cavalcade. 

With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir 

Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur. 

And lo ! among the menials, in mock state, 

Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait. 

His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind. 

The solemn ape demurely perched behind. 

King Robert rode, making huge merriment 

In all the country towns through which they went. 

The Pope received them with great pomp and blare 
Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's square. 
Giving his benediction and embrace. 
Fervent, and full of apostolic grace. 
While with congratulations and with prayers 
He entertained the Angel unawares, 
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd, 
Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud, 
I am the King ! Look, and behold in me 
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 393 

This man, who wears my semblance to your eyes, 

Is an impostor in a king's disguise. 

Do you not know me ? does no voice within 

Answer my cry, and say we are akin ? " 

The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien, 

Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene ; 

The Emperor, laughing, said, " It is strange sport 

To keep a madman for thy Fool at court ! " 

And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace 

Was hustled back among the populace. 

In solemn state the Holy Week went by, 

And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky ; 

The presence of the Angel, with its light. 

Before the sun rose, made the city bright, 

And with new fervor filled the hearts of men. 

Who felt that Christ indeed had risen again. 

Even the Jester, on his bed of straw, 

With haggard eyes the unwonted splendor saw, 

He felt within a power unfelt before. 

And, kneeling humbly on his chamber- floor. 

He heard the rushing garments of the Lord 

Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward. 

And now the visit ending, and once more 
Valmond returning to the Danube's shore. 
Homeward the Angel journeyed, and again 
The land was made resplendent with his train, 
Flashing along the towns of Italy 
Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea. 
And when once more within Palermo's wall. 
And, seated on the throne in his great hall, 
He heard the Angelus from convent towers, 
As if the better world conversed with ours. 
He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher. 
And with a gesture bade the rest retire ; 



394 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And when they were alone, the Angel said, 
" Art thou the King ? " Then, bowing down his head, 
King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast. 
And meekly answered him : "' Thou knowest best ! 
My sins as scarlet are ; let me go hence, 
And in some cloister's school of penitence. 
Across those stones, that pave the way to heaven. 
Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be shriven ! " 

The Angel smiled, and from his radiant face 

A holy light illumined all the place. 

And through the open window, loud and clear, 

They heard the monks chant in the chapel near. 

Above the stir and tumult of the street : 

" He has put down the mighty from their seat, 

And has exalted them of low degree ! " 

And through the chant a second melody 

Rose like the throbbing of a single string : 

'' I am an Angel, and thou art the King ! " 

King Robert, who was standing near the throne, 

Lifted his eyes, and lo ! he was alone ! 

But all apparelled as in days of old. 

With ermined mantle and with cloth of gold ; 

And when his courtiers came, they found him there 

Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent prayer. 

EVANGELINE 
A Tale of Acadie 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hem- 
locks. 
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twi- 
light. 
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic. 
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. 
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 395 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the hearts that 

beneath it 
Leaped hke the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of 

the huntsman ? 
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, — 
Men whose lives glided on like' rivers that water the woodlands, 
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven ? 
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed ! 
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October 
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the 

ocean. 
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre. 

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is 
patient. 
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion. 
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest ; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 

PART THE FIRST 



In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, 
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward, 
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number. 
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant. 
Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons the flood-gates 
Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows. 
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and corn- 
fields 
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; and away to the 

northward 
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains 
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic 
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station de- 
scended. 



396 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village. 
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock, 
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries. 
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows ; and gables pro- 
jecting 
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway. 
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the 

sunset 
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys, 
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden 
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors 
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of 

the maidens. 
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children 
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them. 
Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose matrons and 

maidens. 
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome. 
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the 

sun sank 
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending, 
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from 
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows ; 
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pre, 
Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing his household, 
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village. 
Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 397 

Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the 

oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers ; 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the 

wayside. 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of 

her tresses ! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the 

meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the maiden. 
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its 

turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop 
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and 

her missal. 
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings 
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom, 
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession, 
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her. 
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music. 

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer 
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea ; and a shady 
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it. 
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath ; and a footpath 
Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow. 
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a penthouse. 
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside. 
Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of Mary. 
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss- 
grown 
Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses. 



398 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and 

the farm-yard ; 
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and 

the harrows ; 
There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his feathered 

seraglio, 
Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame 
Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter. 
Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each 

one 
Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a staircase. 
Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft. 
There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates 
Murmuring ever of love ; while above in the variant breezes 
Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation. 

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of Grand- 

Pre 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal, 
Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest devotion ; 
Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her 

garment ! 
Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended. 
And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps, 
Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker 

of iron; 
Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, 
Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered 
Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music. 
But among all who came young Gabriel only was welcome ; 
Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith. 
Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men ; 
For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations. 
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people. 
Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from earliest childhood 
Grew up together as brother and sister ; and P^ather P'elician, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 399 

Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their 

letters 
Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the 

plain-song. 
But when th'e hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed, 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith. 
There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him 
Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything. 
Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire of the cart- 
wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and 

crevice, ' 

Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows. 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes, 
Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the meadow. 
Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters, 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledg- 
lings ; 
Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow ! 
Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children. 
He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of the morning. 
Gladdened the earth with its light and ripened thought into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a woman. 
" Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called ; for that was the 

sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with 

apples ; 
She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and abundance, 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 



400 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

IV 

Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand-Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at 

anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labor 
Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the farms and neighboring 

hamlets, 
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants. 
Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk 
Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous meadows, 
Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in the 

greensward. 
Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the highway. 
Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were silenced. 
Thronged were the streets with people ; and noisy groups at the 

house-doors 
Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped together. 
Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and feasted ; 
For with this simple people, who lived like brothers together, 
All things were held in common, and what one had was another's. 
Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more abundant : 
For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father ; 
Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome and 

gladness 
Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard, 
Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal. 
There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the notary 

seated ; 
There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith. 
Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the beehives, 
Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of 

waistcoats. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 401 

Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his snow- 
white 
Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the jolly face of the fiddler 
Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the 

embers. 
Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle, 
Tous les Bourgeois de ChartreSy and Le Carillon de Dunkerque, 
And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances 
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them. 
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's daughter ! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith ! 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a summons sonorous 
Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum 

beat. 
Thronged ere long was the church with men. Without, in the 

churchyard, 
Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the 

headstones 
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among 

them 
Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor 
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and case- 
ment, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and spake from the steps of the 

altar, 
Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission. 
"' You are convened this day," he said, "by his Majesty's orders. 
Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have answered his 

kindness 
Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make and my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous. 



402 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch : 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves from this 

province 
Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people ! 
Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's pleasure! " 
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer, 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters his windows. 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the 

house-roofs, 
Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker. 
Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger. 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the door-way. 
Vain was the hope of escape ; and cries and fierce imprecations 
Rang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the heads of 

the others 
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the blacksmith, 
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and wildly he 

shouted, — 
" Down with the tyrants of England ! we never have sworn them 

allegiance ! 
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes and 

our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to the 

pavement. 

In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention, 
Lo ! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician 
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of the altar. 
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed into silence 
All that clamorous throng ; and thus he spake to his people ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 403 

Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents measured and mournful 
Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the clock strikes. 
" What is this that ye do, my children ? what madness has seized 

you ? 
Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and taught you, 
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another ! 
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations ? 
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness ? 
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane it 
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred ? 
Lo ! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gazing upon you ! 
See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion ! 
Hark ! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ' O Father, forgive 

them ! ' 
Let us repeat that prayer in the hour wTien the wicked assail us, 
Let us repeat it now, and say, ' O Father, forgive them ! ' " 
Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of his people 
Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate out- 
break. 
While they repeated his prayer, and said, " O Father, forgive them ! " 

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed from the 

altar ; 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the people 

responded. 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts ; and the Ave Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, with devotion 

translated. 
Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to heaven. 

Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, and on 
all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women and children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her right hand 
Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, that, descending, 
Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, and roofed each 
Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned its windows. 



404 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the table ; 
There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with wild 

flowers ; 
There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought from 

the dairy ; 
And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of the farmer. 
Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the sunset 
Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambrosial meadows. 
Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen, 
And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial ascended, — 
Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience ! 
Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the village. 
Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of the women, 
As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they departed, 
Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their 

children. 
Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors 
Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai. 
Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered. 
All was silent within ; and in vain at the door and the windows 
Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by emotion, 
" Gabriel ! " cried she aloud with tremulous voice ; but no answer 
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the 

living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the supper 

untasted. 
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of 

terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber. 
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate rain fall 
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice of the echoing thunder 
Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world He 

created ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 405 

Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice of 

Heaven ; 
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered till 

morning. 



Four times the sun had risen and set ; and now on the fifth day 
Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house. 
Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession. 
Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women, 
Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore, 
Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings. 
Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the 

woodland. 
Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen. 
While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of play- 
things. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried ; and there on the 

sea-beach 
Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants. 
All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply ; 
All day long the wains came laboring down from the village. 
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting. 
Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the 

churchyard. 
Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden the 

church-doors 
Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy 

procession 
Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian farmers. 
Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their 

country. 
Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and wayworn, 
So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended 
Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their 

daughters. 



4o6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Foremost the young men came ; and, raising together their voices, 
Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions : — 
" Sacred heart of the Saviour ! O inexhaustible fountain ! 
Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience! " 
Then the old men, as they marched, and the women that stood by 

the wayside 
Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above 

them 
Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed. 

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in silence. 
Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of affliction, — 
Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession approached her. 
And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 
Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him, 
Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder, and 

whispered, — 
" Gabriel ! be of good cheer ! for if we love one another 
Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen ! " 
Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, for her 

father 
Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas ! how changed was his aspect ! 
Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and 

his footstep 
Heavier seemed with the weight of the hea\y heart in his bosom. 
But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced 

him. 
Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not. 
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mournful procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats ; and in the confusion 
Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw 

their children 
Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, 
While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 407 

Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and the 

twihght 
Deepened and darkened around ; and in haste the refluent ocean 
Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the wagons, 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle. 
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them, 
Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean. 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors. 
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from their 

pastures ; 
Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk from their 

udders ; 
Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars of the 

farmyard, — 
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand of the 

milkmaid. 
Silence reigned in the streets ; from the church no Angelus 

sounded, 
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from the 

windows. 

But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had been kindled. 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from wrecks in the 

tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were gathered. 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying of 

children. 
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in his parish, 
Wand,ered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and cheering, 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate seashore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with her father. 
And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man. 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion, 



408 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer him, 
Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked not, he 

spake not, 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering fire-light. 
" Bcncdicite," murmured the priest, in tones of compassion. 
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on a threshold, 
Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow. 
Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden. 
Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above them 
Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of 

mortals. 
Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in silence. 

Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the blood-red 
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the horizon 
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow. 
Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together. 
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village. 
Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the 

roadstead. 
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were 
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands 

of a martyr. 
Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, 

uplifting, 
Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred 

housetops 
Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on 
shipboard. 
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish, 
" We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand- 

Pr6 ! " 
Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farmyards. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 409 

Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon the lowing of cattle 

Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted. 

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encamp- 
ments 

Far in the western prairies of forests that skirt the Nebraska, 

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the 
whirlwind. 

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river. 

Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the 
horses 

Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o'er the 
meadows. 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the priest and the 

maiden 
Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened before 

them ; 
And as they turned at length to speak to their silent companion, 
Lo ! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on the 

seashore 
Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed. 
Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden 
Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her terror. 
Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on his bosom. 
Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious slumber ; 
And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a multitude near 

her. 
Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing upon her, 
Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest compassion. 
Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the landscape, 
Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces around her, 
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses, 
Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people — 
" Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier season 
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our 

exile. 
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard." 



4IO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by the 

seaside, 
Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches, 
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pre. 
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow, 
Lo ! with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation, 
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges, 
'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean. 
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying land- 
ward. 
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of embarking ; 
And with the ebb of that tide the ships sailed out of the harbor, 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in 
ruins. 

PART THE SECOND 
II 

********** 

It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful River, 
Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash, 
Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, 
Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen. 
It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked 
Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together, 
Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune ; 
Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay. 
Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers 
On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas, 
With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician. 
Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with 

forests. 
Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river ; 
Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders. 
Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike 
Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the 

current, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 41 1 

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sandbars 
Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their margin, 
Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded. 
Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river, 
Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, 
Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and dove-cots. 
They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer, 
Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron. 
Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward. 
They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering the Bayou of 

Plaquemine, 
Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters. 
Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction. 
Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress 
Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid-air 
Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals. 
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons 
Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset. 
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter. 
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water, 
Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches, 
Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a 

ruin. 
Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around them ; 
And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and sad- 
ness, — 
Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed. 
As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies. 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa. 
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil. 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that faintly 
Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through the moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that assumed the shape of a 

phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered before her, 
And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer and nearer. 



412 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one of the oarsmen, 
And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure 
Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast on his 

bugle. 
Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the blast 

rang, 
Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the forest. 
Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to the music. 
Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance. 
Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches ; 
But not a voice replied ; no answer came from the darkness ; 
And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the 

silence. 
Then Evangeline slept ; but the boatmen rowed through the 

midnight. 
Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat-songs. 
Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers. 
While through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the 

desert. 
Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the forest. 
Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim 

alligator. 

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades ; and 
before them 
Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. 
Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations 
Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus 
Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen. 
Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms, 
And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan islands. 
Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses, 
Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber. 
Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended. 
Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin. 
Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about on the green- 
sward. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 413 

Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered. 
Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar. 
Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grape- 
vine 
Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob, 
On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending, 
Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blossom to blossom. 
Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it. 
Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening heaven 
Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial. 

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands, 
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the water, 
Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and trappers. 
Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the bison and beaver. 
At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful and careworn. 
Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and a sadness 
Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written. 
Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and restless, 
Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow. 
Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the island, 
But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos ; 
So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the willows ; 
All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the 

sleepers ; 
Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden. 
Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie. 
After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance, 
As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden 
Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, " O Father Felician ! 
Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders. 
Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition ? 
Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit ? " 
Then, with a blush, she added, "" Alas for my credulous fancy ! 
Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning." 
But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he 

answered, — 



414 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are they to me without 

meaning, 
FeeHng is deep and still ; and the word that floats on the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions. 
Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away to the southward. 
On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur and 

St. Martin. 
There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bride- 
groom, 
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold. 
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit-trees ; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens 
Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest. 
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana." 

With these words of cheer they arose and continued their 

journey. 
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon 
Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape ; 
Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. 
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver, 
Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. 
Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness. 
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling 
Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her. 
Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of 

singers, 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, 
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music. 
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to 

listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring to madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation ; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 415 

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops 
Shakes down the ratthng rain in a crystal shower on the branches. 
With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion, 
Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through the green 

Opelousas, 
And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland, 
Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring dwell- 

Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle. 



In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's 

waters. 
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle, 
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded. 
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty, 
And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of the forest. 
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they 

molested. 
There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile, 
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country. 
There old Rene Leblanc had died ; and when he departed, 
Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants. 
Something at least there was in the friendly streets of the city. 
Something that spake to her heart, and made her no longer a 

stranger ; 
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the 

Quakers, 
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country. 
Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters. 
So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor. 
Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining. 
Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her 

footsteps. 
As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning 
Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, 



4i6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets, 

So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far below 

her, 
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; and the pathway 
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the 

distance. 
Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his image. 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she beheld him. 
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and absence. 
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not. 
Over him years had no power, he was not changed, but trans- 
figured ; 
He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and not absent ; 
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others, 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her. 
So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous spices, 
Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with aroma. 
Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow, 
Meekly with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour. 
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy ; frequenting 
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city, 
Where distress and want concealed themselves from the sunlight, 
Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected. 
Night after night when the world was asleep, as the watchman 

repeated 
Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city. 
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper. 
Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow through the suburbs 
Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits for the market, 
Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its watchings. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city, 
Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons. 
Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws but 

an acorn. 
And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September, 
Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the meadow, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 417 

So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural margin, 
Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of existence. 
Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor ; 
But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger ; — 
Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants, 
Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless. 
Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and 

woodlands ; ^ 
Now the city surrounds it ; but still, with its gateway and wicket 
Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo 
Softly the words of the Lord : — " The poor ye always have with 

you." 
Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Mercy. The dying 
Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there 
Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor, 
Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and apostles, 
Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance. 
Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial. 
Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would enter. 

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and 

silent, 
Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse. 
Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden. 
And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them, 
That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and 

beauty. 
Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the 

east-wind. 
Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of 

Christ Church, 
While, intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted 
Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their church 

at Wicaco. 
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit ; 
Something within her said, " At length thy trials are ended ; " 
And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness. 



41 8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants, 
Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and in silence 
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces, 
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the roadside. 
Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, 
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her 

presence 
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison. 
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler. 
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever. 
Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night time ; 
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder. 
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder 
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from 

her fingers, 
And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning. 
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish, 
That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows. 
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man. 
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his temples ; 
But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment 
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood ; 
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying. 
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever. 
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals, 
That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over. 
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted 
Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness, 
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking. 
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations. 
Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded 
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like, 
" Gabriel ! O my beloved ! " and died away into silence. 
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood ; 
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 419 

Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, walking under their 

shadow. 
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision. 
Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids, 
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside. 
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered 
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would 

have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise ; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him, 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it suddenly sank into darkness, 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement. 

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing. 
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience ! 
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom. 
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I thank thee ! " 



Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from its shadow, 
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. 
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, 
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed. 
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them. 
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever. 
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy, 
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their 

labors. 
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey ! 

Still stands the forest primeval ; but under the shade of its 
branches 
Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 
Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic 
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile 
Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom. 



420 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy ; 
Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun, 
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, 
While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 

Selections 

INTRODUCTION 

Should you ask me, whence these stories ? 

Whence these legends and traditions, 

With the odors of the forest, 

With the dew and damp of meadows, 

With the curling smoke of wigwams, 

With the rushing of great rivers. 

With their frequent repetitions. 

And their wild reverberations. 

As of thunder in the mountains ? 

I should answer, I should tell you, 
" From the forests and the prairies. 
From the great lakes of the Northland, 
From the land of the Ojibways, 
From the land of the Dacotahs, 
From the mountains, moor:^, and fen-lands, 
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
Feeds among the reeds and rushes. 
I repeat them as I heard them 
From the lips of Nawadaha, 
The musician, the sweet singer," 

Should you ask where Nawadaha 
Found these songs so wild and wayward. 
Found these legends and traditions, 
I should answer, I should tell you, 
" In the bird's-nests of the forest, 
In the lodges of the beaver, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 421 

In the hoof-prints of the bison, 
In the eyry of the eagle ! 

"' All the wild-fowl sang them to him, 
In the moorlands and the fen-lands, 
In the melancholy marshes ; 
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them, 
Mahn, the loon, the wild goose, Wawa, 
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa ! " 

If still further you should ask me, 
Saying, " Who was Nawadaha ? 
Tell us of this Nawadaha," 
I should answer your inquiries 
Straightway in such words as follow. 

"In the Vale of Tawasentha, 
In the green and silent valley, 
By the pleasant water-courses, 
Dwelt the singer Nawadaha, 
Round about the Indian village 
Spread the meadows and the cornfields. 
And beyond them stood the forest. 
Stood the groves of singing pine-trees. 
Green in Summer, white in Winter, 
Ever sighing, ever singing. 

" And the pleasant water-courses, 
You could trace them through the valley, 
By the rushing in the Spring-time, 
By the alders in the Summer, 
By the white fog in the Autumn, 
By the black line in the Winter ; 
And beside them dwelt the singer, 
In the vale of Tawasentha, 
In the green and silent valley, 

" There he sang of Hiawatha, 
Sang the Song of Hiawatha, 
Sang his wondrous birth and being, 
How he prayed and how he fasted, 



422 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

How he lived, and toiled, and suffered, 
That the tribes of men might prosper, 
That he might advance his people ! " 

Ye who love the haunts of Nature, 
Love the sunshine of the meadow. 
Love the shadow of the forest, 
Love the wind among the branches. 
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, 
And the rushing of great rivers 
Through their palisades of pine-trees. 
And the thunder in the mountains. 
Whose innumerable echoes 
Flap like eagles in their eyries ; — 
Listen to these wild traditions, 
To this Song of Hiawatha ! 

Ye who love a nation's legends. 
Love the ballads of a people, 
That like voices from afar off 
Call to us to pause and listen. 
Speak in tones so plain and childlike. 
Scarcely can the ear distinguish 
Whether they are sung or spoken ; — 
Listen to this Indian Legend, 
To this Song of Hiawatha ! 

Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple. 
Who have faith in God and Nature, 
Who believe that in all ages 
Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not. 
That the feeble hands and helpless. 
Groping blindly in the darkness. 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness 
And are lifted up and strengthened ; — 
Listen to this simple story. 
To this Song; of Hiawatha ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 423 

Ye who sometimes, in your rambles 
Through the green lanes of the country, 
Where the tangled barberry-bushes 
Hang their tufts of crimson berries 
Over stone walls gray with mosses, 
Pause by some neglected graveyard, 
For a while to muse, and ponder 
On a half-effaged inscription, 
Written with little skill of song-craft. 
Homely phrases, but each letter 
Full of hope and yet of heart-break, 
Full of all the tender pathos 
Of the Here and the Hereafter ; — 
Stay and read this rude inscription, 
Read this Song of Hiawatha ! 

Ill 

HIAWATHA'S CHILDHOOD 

Downward through the evening twilight, 
In the days that are forgotten, 
In the unremembered ages, 
From the full moon fell Nokomis, 
Fell the beautiful Nokomis, 
She a wife but not a mother. 

She was sporting with her women, 
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines, 
When her rival, the rejected, 
Full of jealousy and hatred. 
Cut the leafy swing asunder. 
Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines. 
And Nokomis fell affrighted 
Downward through the evening twilight, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
On the prairie full of blossoms, 
" See ! a star falls ! " said the people ; 
" From the sky a star is falling ! " 



424 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There among the ferns and mosses, 
There among the prairie lilies, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
In the moonlight and the starlight. 
Fair Nokomis bore a daughter. 
And she called her name Wenonah, 
As the first-born of her daughters. 
And the daughter of Nokomis 
Grew up like the prairie lilies, 
Grew a tall and slender maiden. 
With the beauty of the moonlight, 
With the beauty of the starlight. 

And Nokomis warned her often. 
Saying oft, and oft repeating, 
" Oh, beware of Mudjekeewis, 
Of the West-Wind, Mudjekeewis ; 
Listen not to what he tells you ; 
Lie not down upon the meadow, 
Stoop not down among the lilies, 
Lest the West- Wind come and harm you ! " 

But she heeded not the warning. 
Heeded not those words of wisdom. 
And the West-Wind came at evening, 
Walking lightly o'er the prairie. 
Whispering to the leaves and blossoms. 
Bending low the flowers and grasses. 
Found the beautiful Wenonah, 
Lying there among the lilies, 
Wooed her with his words of sweetness, 
Wooed her with his soft caresses, 
Till she bore a son in sorrow. 
Bore a son of love and sorrow. 

Thus was born my Hiawatha, 
Thus was born the child of wonder ; 
But the daughter of Nokomis, 
Hiawatha's gentle mother, 
In her anguish died deserted 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 425 

By the West-Wind, false and faithless, 
By the heartless Mudjekeewis. 

For her daughter, long and loudly 
Wailed and wept the sad Nokomis ; 
"" Oh that I were dead ! " she murmured, 
"Oh that I were dead, as thou art ! 
No more work, and no more weeping, 
Wahonowin ! Wahonowin ! " 

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 
Dark behind it rose the forest, 
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 
Rose the firs with cones upon them ; 
Bright before it beat the water. 
Beat the clear and sunny water, 
Beat the shining Big-Sea- Water. 

There the wrinkled old Nokomis 
Nursed the little Hiawatha, 
Rocked him in his linden cradle, 
Bedded soft in moss and rushes. 
Safely bound with reindeer sinews ; 
Stilled his fretful wail by saying, 
" Hush ! the Naked Bear will hear thee ! " 
Lulled him into slumber, singing, 
" Ewa-yea ! my little owlet ! 
Who is this, that lights the wigwam ? 
With his great eyes lights the wigwam ? 
Ewa-yea ! my little owlet ! " 

Many things Nokomis taught him 
Of the stars that shine in heaven ; 
Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, 
Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses ; 
Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits. 
Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs. 
Flaring far away to northward 



426 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

In the frosty nights of Winter ; 
Showed the broad white road in heaven, 
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows. 
Running straight across the heavens. 
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. 

At the door on summer evenings 
Sat the little Hiawatha ; 
• Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, 

Heard the lapping of the waters, 
Sounds of music, words of wonder ; 
" Minne-wawa ! " said the pine-trees. 
" Mudway-aushka ! " said the water. 

Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee, 
Flitting through the dusk of evening. 
With the twinkle of its candle 
Lighting up the brakes and bushes, 
And he sang the song of children, 
Sang the song Nokomis taught him : 
"' Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly. 
Little, flitting, white-fire insect. 
Little, dancing, white-fire creature. 
Light me with your little candle. 
Ere upon my bed I lay me, 
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids ! " 

Saw the moon rise from the water 
Rippling, rounding from the water, 
Saw the flecks and shadows on it. 
Whispered, " What is that, Nokomis ? " 
And the good Nokomis answered : 
'" Once a warrior, very angry. 
Seized his grandmother, and threw her 
Up into the sky at midnight ; 
Right against the moon he threw her ; 
• 'T is her body that you see there." 

Saw the rainbow in the heaven. 
In the eastern sky, the rainbow, 
Whispered, " What is that, Nokomis .-' " 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 427 

And the good Nokomis answered : 

" 'T is the heaven of flowers you see there ; 

All the wild-flowers of the forest, 

All the lilies of the prairie, 

When on earth they fade and perish, 

Blossom in that heaven above us." 

When he heard the owls at midnight, 
Hooting, laughing in the forest, 
"' What is that ? " he cried in terror, 
" What is that," he said, " Nokomis ? " 
And the good Nokomis answered : 
" That is but the owl and owlet, 
Talking in their native language, 
Talking, scolding at each other." 

Then the little Hiawatha 
Learned of every bird its language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How they built their nests in Summer, 
Where they hid themselves in Winter, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Chickens." 

Of all beasts he learned the language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How the beavers built their lodges, 
Where the squirrels hid their acorns, 
How the reindeer ran so swiftly. 
Why the rabbit was so timid, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Brothers." 

Then lagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
He the traveller and the talker, 
He the friend of old Nokomis, 
Made a bow for Hiawatha ; 
From a branch of ash he made it. 
From an oak-bough made the arrows. 
Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers. 



428 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And the cord he made of deer-skin. 

Then he said to Hiawatha : 
" Go, my son, into the forest, 
Where the red deer herd together, 
Kill for us a famous roebuck. 
Kill for us a deer with antlers ! " 

Forth into the forest straightway 
All alone walked Hiawatha 
Proudly, with his bow and arrows ; 
And the birds sang round him, o'er him, 
" Do not shoot us, Hiawatha ! " 
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
" Do not shoot us, Hiawatha ! " 

Up the oak-tree, close beside him, 
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
In and out among the branches, 
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree, 
Laughed, and said between his laughing, 
" Do not shoot me, Hiawatha ! " 

And the rabbit from his pathway 
Leaped aside, and at a distance 
Sat erect upon his haunches, 
Half in fear and half in frolic, 
Saying to the little hunter, 
" Do not shoot me, Hiawatha ! " 

But he heeded not, nor heard them, 
For his thoughts were with the red deer 
On their tracks his eyes were fastened. 
Leading downward to the river, 
To the ford across the river, 
And as one in slumber walked he. 

Hidden in the alder-bushes, 
• There he waited till the deer came, 
Till he saw two antlers lifted, 
Saw two eyes look from the thicket. 
Saw two nostrils point to windward, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 429 

And a deer came down the pathway, 
Flecked with leafy light and shadow. 
And his heart within him fluttered, 
Trembled like the leaves above him, 
Like the birch-leaf palpitated, 
As the deer came down the pathway. 

Then, upon one knee uprising, 
Hiawatha aimed an arrow ; 
Scarce a twig moved with his motion. 
Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled. 
But the wary roebuck started. 
Stamped with all his hoofs together. 
Listened with one foot uplifted, 
Leaped as if to meet the arrow ; 
Ah ! the singing, fatal arrow ; 
Like a wasp it buzzed and stung him ! 

Dead he lay there in the forest. 
By the ford across the river ; 
Beat his timid heart no longer. 
But the heart of Hiawatha 
Throbbed and shouted and exulted, 
As he bore the red deer homeward. 
And lagoo and Nokomis 
Hailed his coming with applauses. 

From the red deer's hide Nokomis 
Made a cloak for Hiawatha, 
From the red deer's flesh Nokomis 
Made a banquet in his honor. 
All the village came and feasted, 
All the guests praised Hiawatha, 
Called him Strong-Heart, Soan-ge-taha ! 
Called him Loon-Heart, Mahn-go-taysee ! 



430 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

XX 

THE FAMINE 

O the long and dreary Winter ! 
O the cold and cruel Winter ! 
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker 
Froze the ice on lake and river, 
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper, 
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, 
Fell the covering snow, and drifted 
Through the forest, round the village. 

Hardly from his buried wigwam 
Could the hunter force a passage ; 
With his mittens and his snow-shoes 
Vainly walked he through the forest, 
Sought for bird or beast and found none 
Saw no track of deer or rabbit. 
In the snow beheld no footprints. 
In the ghastly, gleaming forest 
Fell, and could not rise from weakness, 
Perished there from cold and hunger. 

O the famine and the fever ! 
O the wasting of the famine ! 
O the blasting of the fever ! 
O the wailing of the children ! 
O the anguish of the women ! 

All the earth was sick and famished ; 
Hungry was the air around them. 
Hungry was the sky above them. 
And the hungry stars in heaven 
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them ! 

Into Hiawatha's wigwam 
Came two other guests as silent 
As the ghosts were, and as gloomy, 
Waited not to be invited, 
Did not parley at the doorway, 
Sat there without word of welcome 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 43 1 

In the seat of Laughing Water ; 
Looked with haggard eyes and hollow 
At the face of Laughing Water. 

And the foremost said : " Behold me ! 
I am Famine, Bukadawin ! " 
And the other said : " Behold me ! 
I am Fever, Ahkosewin ! " 

And the lovely Minnehaha 
Shuddered as they looked upon her, 
Shuddered at the words they uttered. 
Lay down on her bed in silence, 
Hid her face, but made no answer ; 
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning 
At the looks they cast upon her. 
At the fearful words they uttered. 

Forth into the empty forest 
Rushed the maddened Hiawatha ; 
In his heart was deadly sorrow, 
In his face a stony firmness ; 
On his brow the sweat of anguish 
Started, but it froze and fell not. 

Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting, 
With his mighty bow of ash-tree. 
With his quiver full of arrows. 
With his mittens, Minjekahwun, 
Into the vast and vacant forest 
On his snow-shoes strode he forward. 
" Gitche Manito, the Mighty ! " 
Cried he with his face uplifted 
In that bitter hour of anguish, 
" Give your children food, O father ! 
Give us food, or we must perish ! 
Give me food for Minnehaha, 
For my dying Minnehaha ! " 

Through the far-resounding forest, 
Through the forest vast and vacant 
Rang that cry of desolation, 



432 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But there came no other answer 
Than the echo of his crying, 
Than the echo of the woodlands, 
'" Minnehaha ! Minnehaha ! " 

All day long roved Hiawatha 
In that melancholy forest, 
Through the shadow of whose thickets, 
In the pleasant days of Summer, 
Of that ne'er forgotten Summer, 
He had brought his young wife homeward 
From the land of the Dacotahs ; 
When the birds sang in the thickets, 
And the streamlets laughed and glistened, 
And the air was full of fragrance, 
And the lovely Laughing Water 
Said with voice that did not tremble, 
" I will follow you, my husband ! " 

In the wigwam with Nokomis, 
With those gloomy guests that watched her, 
With the Famine and the Fever, 
She was lying, the Beloved, . 
She the dying Minnehaha. 

" Hark ! " she said ; " I hear a rushing, 
Hear a roaring and a rushing, 
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha 
Calling to me from a distance ! " 
" No, my child ! " said old Nokomis, 
" 'T is the night-wind in the pine-trees ! " 

"Look!" she said; "I see my father 
Standing lonely at his doorway. 
Beckoning to me from his wigwam, 
In the land of the Dacotahs ! " 
"No, my child! " said old Nokomis, 
" 'T is the smoke, that waves and beckons ! " 

" Ah 1 " said she, " the eyes of Pauguk 
Glare upon me in the darkness, 
I can feel his icy fingers 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 433 

Clasping mine amid the darkness ! 
Hiawatha ! Hiawatha ! " 

And the desolate Hiawatha, 
Far away amid the forest, 
Miles away among the mountains. 
Heard that sudden cry of anguish, 
Heard the voice of Minnehaha 
Calling to him in the darkness, 
' ' H iawatha ! H iawatha ! ' ' 

Over snow-fields waste and pathless. 
Under snow-encumbered branches. 
Homeward hurried Hiawatha, 
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, 
Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing : 
" Wahonowin ! Wahonowin ! 
Would that I had perished for you. 
Would that I were dead as you are ! 
Wahonowin ! Wahonowin ! " 

And he rushed into the wigwam. 
Saw the old Nokomis slowly 
Rocking to and fro and moaning, 
Saw his lovely Minnehaha 
Lying dead and cold before him, 
And his bursting heart within him 
Uttered such a cry of anguish, 
That the forest moaned and shuddered, 
That the very stars in heaven 
Shook and trembled with his anguish. 

Then he sat down, still and speechless, 
On the bed of Minnehaha, 
At the feet of Laughing Water, 
At those willing feet, that never 
More would lightly run to meet him, 
Never more would lightly follow. 

With both hands his face he covered. 
Seven long days and nights he sat there, 
As if in a swoon he sat there. 



434 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Speechless, motionless, unconscious 
Of the daylight or the darkness. 

Then they buried Minnehaha ; 
In the snow a grave they made her, 
In the forest deep and darksome, 
Underneath the moaning hemlocks ; 
Clothed her in her richest garments, 
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine, 
Covered her with snow, like ermine ; 
Thus they buried Minnehaha. 

And at night a fire was lighted, 
On her grave four times was kindled, 
For her soul upon its journey 
To the Islands of the Blessed. 
From his doorway Hiawatha 
Saw it burning in the forest. 
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks ; 
From his sleepless bed uprising. 
From the bed of Minnehaha, 
Stood and watched it at the doorway. 
That it might not be extinguished. 
Might not leave her in the darkness. 

" Farewell ! " said he, " Minnehaha ! 
Farewell, O my Laughing Water ! 
All my heart is buried with you. 
All my thoughts go onward with you ! 
Come not back again to labor, 
Come not back again to suffer, 
Where the Famine and the Fever 
Wear the heart and waste the body. 
Soon my task will be completed, 
Soon your footsteps I shall follow 
To the Islands of the Blessed, 
To the Kingdom of Ponemah, 
To the Land of the Hereafter ! " 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 435 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

[Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807 ; died at Hampton 
Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892] 

PROEM 
Written to Introduce the First General Collection of his Poems 

I love the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs of Spenser's golden days, 

Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

Yet, vainly in my quiet hours 
To breathe their marvelous notes I try ; 

I feel them, as the leaves and flowers 

In silence feel the dewy showers, 
And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky. 

The rigor of a frozen clime, 
The harshness of an untaught ear, 

The jarring words of one whose rhyme 

Beat often Labor's hurried time, 
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. 

Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
No rounded art the lack supplies ; 

Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, 

Or softer shades of Nature's face, 
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. 

Nor mine the seerlike power to show 
The secrets of the heart and mind ; 

To drop the plummet line below 

Our common world of joy and woe, 
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. 



436 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Yet here at least an earnest sense 
Of human right and weal is shown ; 

A hate of tyranny intense, 

And hearty in its vehemence, 
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 

O Freedom ! if to me belong 

Nor mighty Milton's gift divine. 

Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song. 
Still with a love as deep and strong 

As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine 

THE FAREWELL 

Of a VniGixiA Slave Mother to her Daughters sold l\to 
Southern Bondage 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone. 

Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, 

Where the noisome insect stings. 

Where the fever demon strews 

Poison with the falling dews. 

Where the sickly sunbeams glare 

Through the hot and misty air, — 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone. 
From Virginia's hills and waters ; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone. 
There no mother's eye is near them. 
There no mother's ear can hear them ; 
Never, when the torturing lash 
Seams their back with many a gash. 
Shall a mother's kindness bless them, 
Or a mother's arms caress them. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 437 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters ; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 

To the rice swamp dank and lone. 
O, when weary, sad, and slow, 
From the fields at night they go, 
Faint with toil, and racked with pain, 
To their cheerless homes again. 
There no brother's voice shall greet them ; 
There no father's welcome meet them. 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 

To the rice swamp dank and lone. 

From Virginia's hills and waters ; 

Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone. 

To the rice swamp dank and lone. 
From the tree whose shadow lay 
On their childhood's place of play ; 
From the cool spring where they drank ; 
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank ; 
From the solemn house of prayer, 
And the holy counsels there ; 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 

To the rice swamp dank and lone, 

From Virginia's hills and waters ; 

Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 

To the rice swamp dank and lone ; 
Toiling through the weary day, 
And at night the spoiler's prey. 
Oh, that they had earlier died, 
Sleeping calmly, side by side, 



438 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Where the tyrant's power is o'er, 

And the fetter galls no more ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone. 
From Virginia's hills and waters ; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone, — sold and gone. 
To the rice swamp dank and lone. 

By the holy love He beareth ; 

By the bruised reed He spareth ; 

Oh, may He, to whom alone 

All their cruel wrongs are known, 

Still their hope and refuge prove. 

With a more than mother's love. 
Gone, gone, — sold and gone, 
To the rice swamp dank and lone. 
From Virginia's hills and waters ; 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

ICHABOD 

Written upon hearing that Daniel Webster had made a Speech 
IN Favor of the Fugitive Slave Law 

So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn 

Which once he wore ! 
The glory from his gray hairs gone 

Forevermore ! 

Revile him not, the Tempter hath 

A snare for all ; 
And pitying eyes, not scorn and wrath. 

Befit his fall ! 

Oh ! dumb be passion's stormy rage. 

When he who might 
Have lighted up and led his age. 

Falls back in night. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 439 

Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark 

A bright soul driven, 
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 

From hope and heaven ! 

Let not the land, once proud of him, 

Insult him now, 
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 

Dishonored brow. 

But let its humbled sons, instead, 

From sea to lake, 
A long lament, as for the dead, 

In sadness make. 

Of all we loved and honored, naught 

Save power remains ; 
A fallen angel's pride of thought, 

Still strong in chains. 

All else is gone ; from those great eyes 

The 'SOul has fled : 
When faith is lost, when honor dies. 

The man is dead ! 

Then, pay the reverence of old days 

To his dead fame ; 
Walk backward, with averted gaze. 

And hide the shame ! 



SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE 

Of all the rides since the birth of time, 
Told in story or sung in rhyme, — 
On Apuleius's Golden Ass, 
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, 
Witch astride of a human back, 
Islam's prophet on Al-Borak, — 



440 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The strangest ride that ever was sped 
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Body of turkey, head of owl. 
Wings adroop like a rained-on fowl, 
Feathered and ruffled in every part. 
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. 
Scores of women, old and young. 
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, 
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane. 
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain : 
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, 

Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, 

Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as cHase 

Bacchus round some antique vase. 

Brief of skirt, with ankles bare. 

Loose of kerchief and loose of hair. 

With conch shells blowing and fish horns' twang, 

Over and over the Maenads sang : 

" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Small pity for him ! — He sailed away 
From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay, — 
Sailed away from a sinking wreck, 
With his own town's people on her deck ! 
"" Lay by ! lay by ! " they called to him. 
Back he answered, "' Sink or swim ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 441 

Brag of your catch of fish again ! " 
And off he sailed through the fog and rain ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur 

That wreck shall lie forevermore. 

Mother and sister, wife and maid, 

Looked from the rocks of Marblehead 

Over the moaning and rainy sea, — 

Looked for the coming that might not be ! 

What did the winds and the sea birds say 

Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? — 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart. 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead. 

Through the street, on either side. 

Up flew windows, doors swung wide ; 

Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, 

Treble lent the fish horn's bray. 

Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound. 

Hulks of old sailors run aground, 

Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane. 

And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain : 
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By, the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Sweetly along the Salem road 

Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. 

Little the wicked skipper knew 

Of the fields so green and the skies so blue. 

Riding there in his sorry trim. 

Like an Indian idol glum and grim. 



442 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear 

Of voices shouting, far and near : 

'" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

" Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he cried, — 
" What to me is this noisy ride ? 
What is the shame that clothes the skin 
To the nameless horror that lives within ? 
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, 
And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! 
Hate me and curse me, — I only dread 
The hand of God and the face of the dead ! " 
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea 
Said, " God has touched him ! Why should we ! " 
Said an old wife mourning her only son, 
" Cut the rogue's tether and let him run ! " 
So with soft relentings and rude excuse. 
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, 
And gave him a cloak to hide him in, 
And left him alone with his shame and sin. 
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart. 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

THE BAREFOOT BOY 

Blessings on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 443 

With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 
From my heart I give thee joy, — 
I was once a barefoot boy ! 
Prince thou art, — the grown-up man 
Only is repubhcan. 
Let the million-dollared ride ! 
Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
Thou hast more than he can buy 
In the reach of ear and eye, — 
Outward sunshine, inward joy : 
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! 

Oh for boyhood's painless play, 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day. 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge never learned of schools. 
Of the wild bee's morning chase. 
Of the wild-flower's time and place. 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell. 
And the ground mole sinks his well ; 
How the robin feeds her young. 
How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow. 
Where the ground-nut trails its vine. 
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 
Of the black wasp's cunning way. 
Mason of his walls of clay, 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans ! 
For, eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks ; 
Hand in hand with her he walks. 
Face to face with her he talks, 



444 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Part and parcel of her joy, — 
Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 

Oh, for boyhood's time of June, 

Crowding years in one brief moon, 

When all things I heard or saw 

Me, their master, waited for. 

I was rich in flowers and trees, 

Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 

For my sport the squirrel played, 

Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 

For my taste the blackberry cone 

Purpled over hedge and stone ; 

Laughed the brook for my delight 

Through the day and through the night, — 

Whispering at the garden wall. 

Talked with me from fall to fall ; 

Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 

Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 

Mine, on bending orchard trees, 

Apples of Hesperides ! 

Still *as my horizon grew. 

Larger grew my riches too ; 

All the world I saw or knew 

Seemed a complex Chinese toy, 

Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 

Oh for festal dainties spread, 
Like my bowl of milk and bread ; 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood. 
On the door-stone, gray and rude ! 
O'er me, like a regal tent. 
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold. 
Looped in many a wind-swung fold, 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied frogs' orchestra ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 445 

And, to light the noisy choir, 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch : pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy ! 

Cheerily, then, my little man. 
Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
Though the flinty slopes be hard. 
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
Every morn shall lead thee through 
Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
Every evening from thy feet 
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : 
All too soon these feet must hide 
In the prison cells of pride. 
Lose the freedom of the sod. 
Like the colt's for work be shod, 
Made to tread the mills of toil. 
Up and down in ceaseless moil : 
Happy if their track be found 
Never on forbidden ground ; 
Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy. 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! 



TELLING THE BEES 

Here is the place ; right over the hill 

Runs the path I took ; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still. 

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred. 

And the poplars tall ; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard. 

And the white horns tossing above the wall. 



446 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; 

And down by the brink 
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed o'errun, 

Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, 

Heavy and slow ; 
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, 

And the same brook sings of a year ago. 

There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze ; 

And the June sun warm 
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, 

Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 

I mind me how with a lover's care 

From my Sunday coat 
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair. 

And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. 

Since we parted, a month had passed, — 

To love, a year ; 
Down through the beeches I looked at last 

On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. 

I can see it all now, — the slantwise rain 

Of light through the leaves. 
The sundown's blaze on her window-pane. 

The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 

Just the same as a month before, — 

The house and the trees. 
The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, — 

Nothing changed but the hive of bees. 

Before them, under the garden wall. 

Forward and back. 
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small. 

Draping each hive with a shred of black. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 447 

Trembling, I listened : the summer sun 

Had the chill of snow ; 
For I knew she was telling the bees of one 

Gone on the journey we all must go ! 

Then I said to myself, '" My Mary weeps 

For the dead to-day ; 
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps 

The fret and the pain of his age away." 

But her dog whined low ; on the doorway sill, 

With his cane to his chin, 
The old man sat ; and the chore girl still 

Sang to the bees stealing out and in. 

And the song she was singing ever since 

In my ear sounds on : 
" Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 

Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! " 



IN SCHOOL-DAYS 

Still sits the school-house by the road, 
A ragged beggar sleeping ; 

Around it still the sumachs grow, 
And blackberry vines are creeping. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 
Deep scarred by raps official ; 

The warping floor, the battered seats, 
The jack-knife's carved initial ; 

The charcoal frescos on its wall ; 

Its door's worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school, 

Went storming out to playing ! 



448 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Long years ago a winter sun 

Shone over it at setting ; 
Lit up its western window-panes, 

And low eaves' icy fretting, 

It touched the tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes full of grieving. 

Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

For near her stood the little boy 

Her childish favor singled : 
His cap pulled low upon a face 

Where pride and shame were mingled. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow 
To right and left, he lingered ; — 

As restlessly her tiny hands 

The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
The soft hand's light caressing, 

And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 

" I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : 

I hate to go above you, 
Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, — 

" Because, you see, I love you ! " 

Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! The grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing ! 

He lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
How few who pass above him 

Lament their triumph and his loss. 
Like her, — because they love him. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 449 

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS 

friends ! with whom my feet have trod 
The quiet aisles of prayer, 

Glad witness to your zeal for God 
And love of man I bear. 

1 trace your lines of argument ; 

Your logic linked and strong 
I weigh as one who dreads dissent, 
And fears a doubt as wrong. 

But still my human hands are weak 

To hold your iron creeds : 
Against the words ye bid me speak 

My heart within me pleads. 

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought ? 

Who talks of scheme and plan .■' 
The Lord is God ! He needeth not 

The poor device of man. 

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground 

Ye tread with boldness shod ; 
I dare not fix with mete and bound 

The love and power of God. 

Ye praise His justice ; even such 

His pitying love I deem : 
Ye seek a king ; I fain would touch 

The robe that hath no seam. 

Ye see the curse that overbroods 

A world of pain and loss ; 
I hear our Lord's beatitudes 

And prayer upon the cross. 



450 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

More than your schoolmen teach, within 

Myself, alas ! I know : 
Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, 

Too small the merit show. 

I bow my forehead to the dust, 

I veil mine eyes for shame, 
And urge, in trembling self-distrust, 

A prayer without a claim, 

I see the wrong that round me lies, 

I feel the guilt within ; 
I hear, with groan and travail-cries, 

The world confess its sin. 

Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 
And tossed by storms and flood, 

To one fixed trust my spirit clings ; 
I know that God is good ! 

Not mine to look where cherubim 

And seraphs may not see, 
But nothing can be good in Him 

Which evil is in me. 

The wrong that pains my soul below 

I dare not throne above, 
I know not of His hate, — I know 

His goodness and His love. 

I dimly guess from blessings known 

Of greater out of sight. 
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 

His judgments too are right. 

I long for household voices gone. 

For vanished smiles I long. 
But God hath led my dear ones on. 

And He can do no wrong. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 451 

I know not what the future hath 

Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 

His mercy underlies. 

And if my heart and flesh are weak 

To bear an untried pain, 
The bruised reed He will not break, 

But strengthen and sustain. 

No offering of my own I have. 

Nor works my faith to prove ; 
I can but give the gifts He gave. 

And plead His love for love. 

And so beside the Silent Sea 

I wait the muffled oar ; 
No harm from Him can come to me 

On ocean ©r on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 

O brothers ! if my faith is vain, 

If hopes like these betray, 
Pray for me that my feet may gain 

The sure and safer way. 

And Thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen 

Thy creatures as they be. 
Forgive me if too close I lean 

My human heart on Thee ! 



452 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

LAUS DEO! 

Written on hearing the Bells ring on the Passing of the 
Amendment to the Constitution abolishing Slavery 

It is done ! 

Clang of bell and roar of gun 
Send the tidings up and down. 

How the belfries rock and reel ! 

How the great guns, peal on peal, 
Fling the joy from town to town ! 

Ring, O bells ! 

Every stroke exulting tells 
Of the burial hour of crime. 

Loud and long, that all may hear, 

Ring for every listening ear 
Of Eternity and Time ! 

Let us kneel : 
God's own voice is in that peal, 

And this spot is holy ground. 
Lord, forgive us ! What are we, 
That our eyes this glory see. 

That our ears have heard the sound ! 

For the Lord 

On the whirlwind is abroad ; 
In the earthquake he has spoken ; 

He has smitten with His thunder 

The iron walls asunder. 
And the gates of brass are broken ! 

Loud and long 

Lift the old exulting song ; 
Sing with Miriam by the sea. 

He has cast the mighty down ; 

Horse and rider sink and drown ; 
" He hath triumphed gloriously ! " 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 453 

Did we dare, 

In our agony of prayer, 
Ask for more than He has done ? 

When was ever His right hand 

Over any time or land 
Stretched as now beneath the sun ? 

How they pale. 

Ancient myth and song and tale, 
In this wonder of our days. 

When the cruel rod of war 

Blossoms white with righteous law. 
And the wrath of man is praise ! 

Blotted out ! 

All within and all about 
Shall a fresher life begin ; 

Freer breathe the universe 

As it rolls its heavy curse 
On the dead and buried sin ! 

It is done ! 

In the circuit of the sun 
Shall the sound thereof go forth. 

It shall bid the sad rejoice. 

It shall give the dumb a voice. 
It shall belt with joy the earth ! 

Ring and swing, 

Bells of joy ! On morning's wing 
Send the sound of praise abroad ! 

With a sound of broken chains 

Tell the nation that He reigns, 
Who alone is Lord and God ! 



454 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



MY TRIUMPH 



The autumn time has come ; 
On woods that dream of bloom, 
And over purpHng vines, 
The low sun fainter shines. 

The aster-flower is failing, 
The hazel's gold is paling ; 
Yet overhead more near 
The eternal stars appear ! 

And present gratitude 
Insures the future's good, 
And for the things I see 
I trust the things to be ; 

That in the paths untrod. 
And the long days of God, 
My feet shall still be led. 
My heart be comforted. 

O living friends that love me ! 

dear ones gone above me ! 
Careless of other fame, 

1 leave to you my name. 

Hide it from idle praises, 

Save it from evil phrases : 

Why, when dear lips that spake it 

Are dumb, should strangers wake it .-* 

Let the thick curtain fall ; 
I better know than all 
How little I have gained. 
How vast the unattained. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 455 

Not by the page word-painted 
Let life be banned or sainted : 
Deeper than written scroll 
The colors of the soul. 

Sweeter than any sung 

My songs that found no tongue ; 

Nobler than any fact 

My wish that failed of act. 

Others shall sing the song, 
Others shall right the wrong,— 
Finish what I begin, 
And all I fail of win. 

What matter, I or they ? 
Mine or another's day, 
So the right word be said 
And life the sweeter made ? 

Hail to the coming singers ! 
Hail to the brave light-bringers ! 
Forward I reach and share 
All that they sing and dare. 

The airs of heaven blow o'er me ; 
A glory shines before me 
Of what mankind shall be, — 
Pure, generous, brave, and free. 

A dream of man and woman 
Diviner but still human, 
Solving the riddle old, 
Shaping the Age of Gold ! 

The love of God and neighbor ; 
An equal-handed labor ; 
The richer life, where beauty 
Walks hand in hand with duty. 



456 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Ring, bells in unreared steeples, 
The joy of unborn peoples ! 
Sound, trumpets far off blown, 
Your triumph is my own ! 

Parcel and part of all, 
I keep the festival, 
Fore-reach the good to be, 
And share the victory. 

I feel the earth move sunward, 
I join the great march onward. 
And take, by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving. 



MY PLAYMATE 

The pines were dark on Ramoth hill. 
Their song was soft and low ; 

The blossoms in the sweet May wind 
Were falling like the snow. 

The blossoms drifted at our feet. 
The orchard birds sang clear ; 

The sweetest and the saddest day 
It seemed of all the year. 

For, more to me than birds or flowers, 
My playmate left her home. 

And took with her the laughing spring. 
The music and the bloom. 

She kissed the lips of kith and kin, 
She laid her hand in mine : 

What more could ask the bashful boy 
Who fed her father's kine .-• 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 457 

She left us in the bloom of May : 

The constant years told o'er 
Their seasons with as sweet May morns, 

But she came back no more. 

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round 

Of uneventful years ; 
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring 

And reap the autumn ears. 

She lives where all the golden year 

Her summer roses blow ; 
The dusky children of the sun 

Before her come and go. 

There haply with her jewelled hands 

She smooths her silken gown, — 
No more the homespun lap wherein 

I shook the walnuts down. 

The wild grapes wait us by the brook, 

The brown nuts on the hill, 
And still the May-day flowers make sweet 

The woods of Follymill. 

The lilies blossom in the pond, 

The bird builds in the tree. 
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill 

The slow song of the sea. 

I wonder if she thinks of them, 

And how the old time seems, — 
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood 

Are sounding in her dreams. 

I see her face, I hear her voice ; 

Does she remember mine ? 
And what to her is now the boy 

Who fed her father's kine ? 



458 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

What cares she that the orioles build 

For other eyes than ours, — 
That other hands with nuts are filled, 

And other laps with flowers? 

O playmate in the golden time ! 

Our mossy seat is green, 
Its fringing violets blossom yet. 

The old trees o'er it lean. 

The winds so sweet with birch and fern 

A sweeter memory blow ; 
And there in spring the veeries sing 

The song of long ago. 

And still the pines of Ramoth wood 

Are moaning like the sea, — 
The moaning of the sea of change 

Between myself and thee ! 

SNOW-BOUND 

A WINTER IDYL 

" As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so good Spirits which 
be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but 
also by our common Wood fire : and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark 
spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same." — Cor. Agrippa, Occult 
Philosophy, Book I. ch. v. 

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er the fields. 
Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven. 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

Emerson, The Snow-Storm 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 459 

The sun that brief December day 
Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 
And, darkly circled, gave at noon 
A sadder light than waning moon. 
Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
A portent seeming less than threat. 
It sank from sight before it set. 
A chill no coat, however stout. 
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 
A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 

Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 
The coming of the snow-storm told. 
The wind blew east ; we heard the roar 
Of Ocean on his wintry shore. 
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 
Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — 
Brought in the wood from out of doors, 
Littered the stalls, and from the mows 
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows : 
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; 
And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 
Impatient down the stanchion rows 
The cattle shake their walnut bows ; 
While, peering from his early perch 
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch. 
The cock his crested helmet bent 
And down his querulous challenge sent. 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 
The gray day darkened into night, 
A night made hoary with the swarm 
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm. 



46o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow : 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame, 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 

So all night long the storm roared on : 

The morning broke without a sun ; 

In tiny spherule traced with lines 

Of Nature's geometric signs, 

In starry flake and pellicle 

All day the hoary meteor fell ; 

And, when the second morning shone, 

We looked upon a world unknown, 

On nothing we could call our own. 

Around the glistening wonder bent 

The blue walls of the firmament, 

No cloud above, no earth below, — 

A universe of sky and snow ! 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and towers 

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 

Or garden-wall, or belt of wood ; 

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, 

A fenceless drift what once was road ; 

The bridle-post an old man sat 

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat ; 

The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; 

And even the long sweep, high aloof, 

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 

Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our father wasted : "Boys, a path! " 
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy 
Count such a summons less than joy .-') 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 461 

Our buskins on our feet we drew ; 

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low 
To guard our necks and ears from snow, 
We cut the soHd whiteness through. 

And, where the drift was deepest, made 

A tunnel walled and overlaid 

With dazzling crystal : we had read 

Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave. 

And to our own his name we gave. 

With many a wish the luck were ours 

To test his lamp's supernal powers. 

We reached the barn with merry din. 

And roused the prisoned brutes within. 

The old horse thrust his long head out. 

And grave with wonder gazed about ; 

The cock his lusty greeting said, 

And forth his speckled harem led ; 

The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 

And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 

The horned patriarch of the sheep, 
. Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 

Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 

And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north-wind bore 
The loosening drift its breath before ; 
Low circling round its southern zone, 
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone, 
No church-bell lent its Christian tone 
To the savage air, no social smoke 
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. 
A solitude made more intense 
By dreary-voiced elements, 
The shrieking of the mindless wind, 
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind. 
And on the glass the unmeaning beat 
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. 



462 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Beyond the circle of our hearth 
No welcome sound of toil or mirth 
Unbound the spell, and testified 
Of human life and thought outside. 
We minded that the sharpest ear 
The buried brooklet could not hear, 
The music of whose liquid lip 
Had been to us companionship, 
And, in our lonely life, had grown 
To have an almost human tone. 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west. 
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 
From sight beneath the smothering bank, 
We piled with care our nightly stack 
Of wood against the chimney-back, — 
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick ; 
The knotty forestick laid apart. 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush ; then, hovering near. 
We watched the first red blaze appear. 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam. 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 
While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became. 
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
The crane and pendent trammels showed. 
The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed ; 
While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
The meaning of the miracle, 
Whispered the old rhyme: " Undej- the tree 
When fire outdoors bums merrily, 
There the witches are makinor tea.'' 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 463 

The moon above the eastern wood 
Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood 
Transfigured in the silver flood, 
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
Took shadow, or the sombre green 
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
Against the whiteness of their back. 
For such a world and such a night 
Most fitting that unwarming light. 
Which only seemed where'er it fell 
To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door. 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed, 
The house-dog on his paws outspread 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head. 
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet. 
Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow. 
The apples sputtered in a row. 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? 
What matter how the north-wind raved ? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 



464 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 

As was my sire's that winter day, 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of Hfe and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother ! only I and thou 

Are left of all that circle now, — 

The dear home faces whereupon 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. 

Henceforward, listen as we will. 

The voices of that hearth are still ; 

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 

Those lighted faces smile no more. 

We tread the paths their feet have worn, 

We sit beneath their orchard trees. 

We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn ; 
We turn the pages that they read. 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade. 
No voice is heard, no sign is made. 

No step is on the conscious floor ! 
Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust 
(Since He who knows our need is just) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away. 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown. 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 

And Love can never lose its own ! 

We sped the time with stories old, 
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 465 

Or stammered from our school-book lore 
" The chief of Gambia's golden shore." 
How often since, when all the land 
Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, 
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred 
The languorous, sin-sick air, I heard : 
^'Does not the voice of reason cty, 

Claim the first right which Nature gave, 
From the red scourge of bondage fly, 

Nor deign to live a burdened slave ! " 
Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 
Sat down again to moose and samp 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees ; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 
On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; 
Again he heard the violin play 
Which led the village dance away, 
And mingled in its merry whirl 
The grandam and the laughing girl. 
Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 

Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 

Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 
The low green prairies of the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 

And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 

The hake-broil on the driftwood coals ; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot. 
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old. 
And dream and sisrn and marvel told 



466 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 
Adrift along the winding shores, 

When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of the gundelow, 
And idle lay the useless oars. 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking heel. 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cochecho town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 
Recalling, in her fitting phrase. 
So rich and picturesque and free 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways). 
The story of her early days, — 
She made us welcome to her home ; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 
The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country-side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 
The loon's weird laughter far away ; 
We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 
The duck's black squadron anchored lay. 
And heard the wild geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 

Then, haply, with a look more grave. 
And soberer tone, some tale she gave 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 467 

From painful Sewel's ancient tome, 
Beloved in every Quaker home, 
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom. 
Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — 
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed. 
And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 
His portly presence, mad for food, 
With dark hints muttered under breath 
Of casting lots for life or death, 
Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, 
To be himself the sacrifice. 
Then, suddenly, as if to save 
The good man from his living grave, 
A ripple on the water grew, 
A school of porpoise flashed in view. 
"Take, eat," he said, "and be content; 
These fishes in my stead are sent 
By Him who gave the tangled ram 
To spare the child of Abraham." 

Our uncle, innocent of books. 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks. 

The ancient teachers never dumb 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 

In moons and tides and weather wise, 

He read the clouds as prophecies. 

And foul or fair could well divine, 

By many an occult hint and sign. 

Holding the cunning-warded keys 

To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 

Himself to Nature's heart so near 

That all her voices in his ear 

Of beast or bird had meanings clear. 

Like Apollonius of old, 

Who knew the tales the sparrows told. 



468 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Or Hermes, who interpreted 

What the sage cranes of Nilus said ; 

A. simple, guileless, childlike man, 

Content to live where life began ; 

Strong only on his native grounds, 

The little world of sights and sounds 

Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 

Whereof his fondly partial pride 

The common features magnified, 

As Surrey hills to mountains grew 

In White of Selborne's loving view, — 

He told how teal and loon he shot, 

And how the eagle's eggs he got, 

The feats on pond and river done, 

The prodigies of rod and gun ; 

Till, warming with the tales he told. 

Forgotten was the outside cold, 

The bitter wind unheeded blew, 

From ripening corn the pigeons flew. 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 

Went fishing down the river-brink. 

In fields with bean or clover gay. 

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray. 

Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 
The muskrat plied the mason's trade. 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see, and hear, — 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate. 
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness. 
And welcome whereso'er she went, 
A calm and gracious element, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 469 

Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
And womanly atmosphere of home, — 
Called up her girlhood memories, 
The huskings and the apple-bees. 
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails. 
Weaving through all the poor details 
And homespun warp of circumstance 
A golden woof-thread of romance. 
For well she kept her genial mood 
And simple faith of maidenhood ; 
Before her still a cloud-land lay, 
The mirage loomed across her way ; 
The morning dew, that dried so soon 
With others, glistened at her noon ; 
Through years of toil and soil and care, 
From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 
All unprofaned she held apart 
The virgin fancies of the heart. 
Be shame to him of woman born 
Who hath for such but thought of scorn. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 

Her evening task the stand beside ; 

A full, rich nature, free to trust. 

Truthful and almost sternly just. 

Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act. 

And make her generous thought a fact, 

Keeping with many a light disguise 

The secret of self-sacrifice. 

O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 

That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 

Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! 

How many a poor one's blessing went 

With thee beneath the low green tent 
Whose curtain never outward swings ! 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 



470 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes 

Now bathed within the fadeless green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill. 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of river calms. 
Do those large eyes behold me still ? 
With me one little year ago : — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 

For months upon her grave has lain ; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 
I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
I see the violet-sprinkled sod, 
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
The hillside flowers she loved to seek. 
Yet following me where'er I went 
With dark eyes full of love's content. 
The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 
The air with sweetness ; all the hills 
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 
But still I wait with ear and eye 
For something gone which should be nigh, 
A loss in all familiar things. 
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 
And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 

Am I not richer than of old ? 
Safe in thy immortality,* 

What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 

What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 
And while in life's late afternoon, 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon . 

Shall shape and shadow overflow. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 471 

I cannot feel that thou art far, 
Since near at need the angels are, 
And when the sunset gates unbar. 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 
And, white against the evening star, 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 



Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 
The master of the district school 
Held at the fire his favored place ; 
Its warm glow lit a laughing face 
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 
The uncertain prophecy of beard. 
He teased the mitten-blinded cat. 
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat. 
Sang songs, and told us what befalls 
In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 
Born the wild Northern hills among, 
From whence his yeoman father wrung 
By patient toil subsistence scant. 
Not competence and yet not want. 
He early gained the power to pay 
His cheerful, self-reliant way ; 
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 
To peddle wares from town to town ; 
Or through the long vacation's reach 
In lonely lowland districts teach, 
Where all the droll experience found 
At stranger hearths in boarding round. 
The moonlit skater's keen delight. 
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night. 
The rustic party, with its rough 
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, 
His winter task a pastime made. 
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 
He tuned his merry violin, 



472 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Or played the athlete in the barn, 
Or held the good dame's winding yarn, 
Or mirth-provoking versions told 
Of classic legends rare and old, 
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 
Had all the commonplace of home, 
And little seemed at best the odds 
'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 
The guise of any grist-mill brook, 
And dread Olympus at his will 
Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless boy that night he seemed ; 

But at his desk he had the look 
And air of one who wisely schemed. 
And hostage from the future took 
In trained thought and lore of book. 
Large-brained, clear-eyed, »— of such as he 
Shall Freedom's young apostles be. 
Who, following in War's bloody trail. 
Shall every lingering wrong assail ; 
All chains from limb and spirit strike. 
Uplift the black and white alike ; 
Scatter before their swift advance 
The darkness and the ignorance, 
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth. 
Made murder pastime, and the hell 
Of prison-torture possible ; 
The cruel lie of caste refute. 
Old forms remould, and substitute 
For Slavery's lash the freeman's will. 
For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; 
A school-house plant on every hill. 
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 
The quick wires of intelligence ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 473 

Till North and South together brought 
Shall own the same electric thought, 
In peace a common flag salute, 

And, side by side in labor's free 

And unresentful rivalry, 
Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 

Another guest that winter night 

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold. 

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide. 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us at the best, 

A not unfeared, half-welcome guest. 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 

Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash. 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 
And under low brows, black with night. 
Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; 
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 
Presaging ill to him whom Fate 
Condemned to share her love or hate. 
A woman tropical, intense 
In thought and act, in soul and sense, 
She blended in a like degree 
The vixen and the devotee. 
Revealing with each freak or feint 
The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 
The raptures of Siena's-saint. 
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 
Had facile power to form a fist ; 



474 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The warm, dark languish of her eyes 
Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 
Brows saintly calm and lips devout 
Knew every change of scowl and pout ; 
And the sweet voice had notes more high 
And shrill for social battle-cry. 

Since then what old cathedral town 

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 

What convent-gate has held its lock 

Against the challenge of her knock ! 

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, 

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, 

Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 

Or startling on her desert throne 

The crazy Queen of Lebanon 

With claims fantastic as her own. 

Her tireless feet have held their way ; 

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 

She watches under Eastern skies, 

With hope each day renewed and fresh. 
The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 
Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 

Where'er her troubled path may be. 
The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! 

The outward wayward life we see. 

The hidden springs we may not know. 

Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun. 
Through what ancestral years has run 

The sorrow with the woman born. 

What forged her cruel chain of moods. 

What set her feet in solitudes, 

And held the love within her mute, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 475 

What mingled madness in the blood, 

A lifelong discord and annoy, 

Water of tears with oil of joy. 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 
The tangled skein of will and fate, 
To show what metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land. 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events ; 

But He who knows our frame is just, 
Merciful and compassionate, 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is, 

That He remembereth we are dust ! 

At last the great logs, crumbling low. 
Sent out a dull and duller glow. 
The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, 
Ticking its weary circuit through. 
Pointed with mutely-warning sign 
Its black hand to the hour of nine. 
That sign the pleasant circle broke : 
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 
And laid it tenderly away. 
Then roused himself to safely cover 
The dull red brand with ashes over. 
And while, with care, our mother laid 
The work aside, her steps she stayed 
One moment, seeking to express 
Her grateful sense of happiness 
For food and shelter, warmth and health, 
And love's contentment more than wealth, 
With simple wishes (not the weak. 
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, 



4/6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But such as warm the generous heart, 
O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 
That none might lack, that bitter night. 
For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 



Within our beds awhile we heard 
The wind that round the gables roared, 
With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost. 
The board-nails snapping in the frost ; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall. 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new ; 
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew. 
Till in the summer-land of dreams 
They softened to the sound of streams. 
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars. 
And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 
Of merry voices high and clear ; 
And saw the teamsters drawing near 

To break the drifted highways out. 

Down the long hillside treading slow 

We saw the half-buried oxen go, 

Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 

Their straining nostrils white with frost. 

Before our door the straggling train 

Drew up, an added team to gain. 

The elders threshed their hands a-cold, 
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 
From lip to lip ; the younger folks 

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled. 

Then toiled again the cavalcade 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 477 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, 
And woodland paths that wound between 

Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 

From every barn a team afoot. 

At every house a new recruit. 

Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 

Haply the watchful young men saw 

Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 

And curious eyes of merry girls. 

Lifting their hands in mock defence 

Against the snow-balls' compliments, 

And reading in each missive tost 

The charm with Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 
The wise old Doctor went his round. 
Just pausing at our door to say 
In the brief autocratic way 
Of one who, prompt at Duty's call. 
Was free to urge her claim on all, 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need. 
For, one in generous thought and deed, 

What mattered in the sufferer's sight 

The Quaker matron's inward light. 
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
All hearts confess the saints elect 

Who, twain in faith, in love agree. 
And melt not in an acid sect 

The Christian pearl of charity ! 

So days went on : a week had passed 

Since the great world was heard from last. 

The Almanac we studied o'er, 

Read and reread our little store 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; 



478 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

One harmless novel, mostly hid 

From younger eyes, a book forbid, 

And poetry, (or good or bad, 

A single book was all we had,) 

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 

A stranger to the heathen Nine, 

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine. 
The wars of David and the Jews, 
At last the floundering carrier bore 
The village paper to our door. 
Lo ! broadening outward as we read. 
To warmer zones the horizon spread ; 
In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvels that it told. 
Before us passed the painted Creeks, 

And daft McGregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 

And up Taygetus winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 

A Turk's head at each saddle bow ! 
Welcome to us its week old news. 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding knell and dirge of death ; 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale. 
The latest culprit sent to jail ; 
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost. 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost. 

And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street. 
The pulse of life that round us beat ; 
The chill embargo of the snow 
Was melted in the genial glow ; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door. 
And all the world was ours once more ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 479 

Clasp, Angel of the backward look 
And folded wings of ashen gray 
And voice of echoes far away, 
The brazen covers of thy book ; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
- Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past ; 
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe ; 
The monographs of outlived years. 
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears. 
Green hills of life that slope to death. 

And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 

Shade off to mournful cypresses 
With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall, 
Importunate Hours that hours succeed. 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need. 

And duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; 
I hear again the voice that bids 
The dreamer leave his dream midway 

For larger hopes and graver fears : 

Life greatens in these later years, 
The century's aloe flowers to-day ! 



Yet, haply, in some lull of life, 

Some Truce of God which breaks its strife. 

The worldling's eyes shall gather dew. 

Dreaming in throngful city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew ; 
And dear and early friends — the few 
Who yet remain — shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days ; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth, 



48o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And stretch the hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze ! 
And thanks untraced to hps unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 
From unseen meadows newly mown, 
Or lilies floating in some pond, 
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; 
The traveller owns the grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

[Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809; died at Cambridge, 

October 7, 1894] 

OLD IRONSIDES 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her decks, once red with heroes' blood. 

Where knelt the vanquished foe. 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood. 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread. 

Or know the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 481 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave ; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave ; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms. 

The lightning and the gale ! 

THE LAST LEAF 

I saw him once before, 
As he passed by the door. 

And again 
The pavement stones resound. 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime. 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 
By the Crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets. 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan. 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

" They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 



482 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow ; 

But now his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And a crook is in his back. 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



THE BOYS 

1859 

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys ? 
If there has, take him out, without making a noise. 
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's ^pite ! 
Old time is a liar ! We 're twenty to-night ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 483 

We 're twenty ! We 're twenty ! Who says we are more ? 
He 's tipsy, — young jackanapes ! — show him the door ! 
'" Gray temples at twenty ? " — Yes ! white if we please ! 
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there 's nothing can freeze ! 

Was it snowing I spoke of ? Excuse the mistake ! 
Look close, — you will not see a sign of a flake ! 
We want some new garlands for those we have shed, — 
And these are white roses in place of the red. 

We 've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told. 
Of talking (in public) as if we were old : — 
That boy we call " Doctor," and this we call " Judge " ; 
It 's a neat little fiction, — of course it 's all fudge. 

That fellow 's the " Speaker," — the one on the right ; 

" Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night ? 

That 's our " Member of Congress," we say when we chaff ; 

There 's the " Reverend " what 's his name ? — don't make me laugh. 

That boy with the grave mathematical look 

Made believe he had written a wonderful book, 

And the Royal Society thought it was true ! 

So they chose him right in ; a good joke it was, too ! 

There 's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain. 

That could harness a team with a logical chain ; 

When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire. 

We called him "" The Justice," but now he 's " The Squire." 

And there 's a nice youngster of excellent pith, — 
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith ; 
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, — 
Just read on his medal, " My country," " of thee ! " 

You hear that boy laughing ? — You think he 's all fun ; 
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done ; 



484 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, 

And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all ! 

Yes, we 're boys, — always playing with tongue or with pen. 
And I sometime have asked, — Shall we ever be men ? 
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay. 
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away ? 

Then here 's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray ! 
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May ! 
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys. 
Dear Father, take care of thy children, The Boys ! 



THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE, OR THE WONDERFUL 
"ONE-HOSS SHAY" 

A LOGICAL STORY 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 

That was built in such a logical way 

It ran a hundred years to a day. 

And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 

I '11 tell you what happened without delay, 

Scaring the parson into fits, 

Frightening people out of their wits, — 

Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
Georgius Secnndns was then alive, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
That was the year when Lisbon-town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 485 

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 

There is always soniezvhere a weakest spot, — 

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill. 

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still, 

Find it somewhere you must and will, — 

Above or below, or within or without, — 

And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, 

That a chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. 

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do. 
With an "" I dew vum," or an " I teW feo?( ") 
He would build one shay to beat the taown 
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun' ; 
It should be so built that it could n break daown : 
" Fur," said the Deacon, "' 'tis mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; 
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, 

Is only jest 
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 

Where he could find the strongest oak. 

That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, — 

That was for spokes and floor and sills ; 

He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; 

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, 

The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese. 

But lasts like iron for things like these ; 

The hubs of logs from the '" Settler's ellum," — 

Last of its timber, — they could n't sell 'em. 

Never an axe had seen their chips, 

And the wedges flew from between their lips, 

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips ; 

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw. 

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 

Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; 



486 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide ; 

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 

Found in the pit when the tanner died. 

That was the way he " put her through." 

" There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she '11 dew ! " 

Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 

She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 

Deacon and deaconess dropped away. 

Children and grandchildren — where were they ? 

But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake day ! 

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED ; — it came and found 
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; — 
" Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; — 
Running as usual ; much the same. 
Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. 

Little of all we value here 

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 

Without both feeling and looking queer. 

In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth. 

So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 

(This is a moral that runs at large ; 

Take it. — You 're welcome. — No extra charge.) 

FIRST of NOVEMBER, — the Earthquake-day, - 

There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 

A general flavor of mild decay. 

But nothing local, as one may say. 

There could n't be, — for the Deacon's art 

Had made it so like in every part 

That there was n't a chance for one to start. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 487 

For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more. 
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet, as a zvhole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it will be ivom out ! 

First of November, 'Fifty-five ! 

This morning the parson takes a drive. 

Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 

Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 

Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 

" Huddup ! " said the parson. — Off went they. 

The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 

Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 

At what the — Moses — was coming next. 

All at once the horse stood still. 

Close by the meet'n '-house on the hill. 

First a shiver, and then a thrill, 

Then something decidedly like a spill, — 

And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 

At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, — 

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock ! 

What do you think the parson found. 

When he got up and stared around } 

The poor old chaise in a heap or mound. 

As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 

You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, 

How it went to pieces all at once, — 

All at once, and nothing first, — 

Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay 
Logic is logic. That 's all I say. 



488 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare. 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew. 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on my ear it rings. 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. 
As the swift seasons roll ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 489 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free. 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 



A SUN-DAY HYMN 

Lord of all being ! throned afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star ; 
Centre and soul of every sphere, 
Yet to each loving heart how near ! 

Sun of our life, thy quickening ray 
Sheds on our path the glow of day ; 
Star of our hope, thy softened light 
Cheers the long watches of the night. 

Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn ; 
Our noontide is thy gracious dawn ; 
Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign ; 
All, save the clouds of sin, are thine ! 

Lord of all life, below, above. 

Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, 

Before thy ever-blazing throne 

We ask no lustre of our own. 

Grant us thy truth to make us free, 
And kindling hearts that burn for thee, 
Till all thy living altars claim 
One holy light, one heavenly flame ! 



490 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE VOICELESS 

We count the broken lyres that rest 

Where the sweet waihng singers slumber, 
But o'er their silent sister's breast 

The wild-flowers who will stoop to number ? 
A few can touch the magic string, 

And noisy Fame is proud to win them : — 
Alas for those that never sing, 

But die with all their music in them ! 

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone 

Whose song has told their hearts' sad story, — 
Weep for the voiceless, who have known 

The cross without the crown of glory ! 
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
But where the glistening night-dews weep 

On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 

O hearts that break and give no sign 

Save whitening lips and fading tresses, 
Till Death pours out his longed-for wine 

Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses, - 
If singing breath or echoing chord 

To every hidden pang were given. 
What endless melodies were poured. 

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven ! 



THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 
Chap. II 

I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being 
too precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring 
friend said the other day to one that was talking good things, — 
good enough to print.? "Why," said he, "you are wasting mer- 
chantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 491 

tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him to the window 
and asked him to look out and tell him what he saw. 

" Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, " and a man driving 
a sprinkling-machine through it." 

" Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water.? What 
would be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our 
thought-sprinklers through them with the valves open, sometimes } 

" Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you 
forget. It shapes our thoughts for us ; — the waves of conversa- 
tion roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me 
modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an 
artist models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic, — you can 
pat and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and 
stick on so easily, when you work that soft material, that there is 
nothing like it for modeling. Out of it comes the shapes which 
you turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you 
happen to write such. Or, to use another illustration, writing or 
printing is like shooting with a rifle ; you may hit your reader's 
mind, or miss it ; — but talking is like playing at a mark with 
the pipe of an engine ; if it is within reach, and you have time 
enough, you can't help hitting it." 

The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior 
excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, " Fust-rate." — I ac- 
knowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression. 
"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece of 
goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest," — 
all such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or 
her who utters them, for generations up and down. There is one 
other phrase which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social 
status, if it is not already : " That tells the whole story." It is 
an expression which vulgar and conceited people particularly affect, 
and which well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from them. 
It is intended to stop all debate, like the previous question in the 
General Court. Only it don't; simply because "that" does not 
usually tell the whole, nor one half of the whole story. 

It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a 

professional education. To become a doctor a man must study 



492 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

some three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just 
how much study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but proba- 
bly not more than this. Now most decent people^hear one hundred 
lectures or sermons (discourses) on theology every year, — and this, 
twenty, thirty, fifty years together. They read a great many reli- 
gious books besides. The clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons 
except what they preach themselves. A dull preacher might be 
conceived, therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, 
simply for want of religious instruction. And on the other hand, 
an attentive and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise 
teachers, might become actually better educated in theology than 
any one of them. We are all theological students, and more of 
us qualified as doctors of divinity, than have received degrees at 
any of the universities. 

It is not strange, therefore, that very good people should often 
find it diflticult, if not impossible, to keep their attention fixed upon 
a sermon treating feebly a subject which they have thought vigor- 
ously about for years, and heard able men discuss scores of times. 
I have often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull discourse acts 
inductively, as electricians would say, in developing strong mental 
currents. I am ashamed to think with what accompaniments and 
variations and fioritiire I have sometimes followed the droning 
of a heavy speaker, — not willingly, — for my habit is reverential, 
but as a necessary result of a slight continuous impression on the 
senses and the mind, which kept both in action without furnishing 
the food they required to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with 
a king-bird after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and 
a lively listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his 
straightforward course, while the other sails round him, over him, 
under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black 
feather, shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and 
finally reaches the crow's perch at the same time the crow does, 
having cut a perfect labyrinth of loops and knots, and spirals 
while the slow fowl was painfully working from one end of his 
straight line to the other. 

[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. A temporary 
boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 493 

middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little 
" frisette " shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, 
a black dress too rusty for recent grief, and contours in basso-rilievo, 
left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very viru- 
lent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and 
repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. 
He laughed good-naturedly, and said there was considerable truth 
in them. He thought he could tell when people's minds were 
wandering, by their looks. In the earlier years of his ministry 
he had sometimes noticed this, when he was preaching ; — a very 
little of late years. Sometimes, when his colleague was preaching, 
he observed this kind of inattention ; but after all, it was not so 
very unnatural. I will say, by the way, that it is a rule I have long 
followed, to tell my worst faults to my minister, and my best 
thoughts to the young people I talk with.] 

1 want to make a literary confession now, which I believe 

nobody has made before me. You know very well that I write 
verses sometimes, because I have read some of them at this table. 
(The company assented, — two or three of them in a resigned sort 
of way, as I thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my 
pocket, and was going to read half a dozen books or so for their 
benefit.) — I continued. Of course I write some lines or passages 
which are better than others ; some which, compared with the 
others, might be called relatively excellent. It is in the nature of 
things that I should consider these relatively excellent lines or 
passages as absolutely good. So much must be pardoned to hu- 
manity. Now I never wrote a ""good" line in my life, but the 
moment after it was written it seemed a hundred years old. Very 
commonly I had a sudden conviction that I had seen it somewhere. 
Possibly I may have sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but I do not 
remember that I ever once detected any historical truth in these 
sudden convictions of the antiquity of my new thought or phrase. 
I have learned utterly to distrust them, and never allow them to 
bully me out of a thought or line. 

This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number of the company 
was diminished by a small secession.) Any new formula which 
suddenly emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains 



494 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

of thought ; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance 
among the recognized growths of our intellect. Any crystalline 
group of musical words has had a long and still period to form in. 
Here is one theory. 

But there is a larger law which perhaps comprehends these facts. 
It is this. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories 
is in a direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their appar- 
ent age runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as they 
increase in magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as old 
as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains backward 
through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of life, be- 
fore its blot of tears or of blood is dry on the page we are turning. 
For this we seem to have lived ; it was foreshadowed in dreams 
that we leaped out of in the cold sweat of terror; in the '" dissolving 
views " of dark day-visions ; all omens pointed to it ; all paths led 
to it. After the tossing half-forgetfulness of the first sleep that 
follows such an event, it comes upon us afresh, as a surprise, at 
waking ; in a few moments it is old again, — old as eternity. 

[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have 
known better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, 
w^as looking at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. 
All at once the blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury 
drops from a broken barometer-tube, and she melted away from 
her seat like an image of snow ; a slung-shot could not have 
brought her down better. God forgive me ! 

After this little episode, I continued, to some few that remained 
balancing tea-spoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilting 
upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads reached the 
wall, where they left gratuitous advertisements of various popular 
cosmetics.] 

When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, new position 
of trial, he finds the place fits him as if he had been measured for it. 
He has committed a great crime, for instance, and is sent to the 
State Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations, privileges, all 
the sharp conditions of his new life, stamp themselves upon his con- 
sciousness as the signet on soft wax ; — a single pressure is enough. 
Let me strengthen the image a little. Did you ever happen to see 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 495 

that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint ? 
The smooth piston shdes backward and forward as a lady might 
slip her delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one 
of its fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal ; it is a coin 
now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, 
when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it 
is that a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us in 
an hour or a moment, — as sharp an impression as if it had taken 
half a lifetime to engrave it. 

It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale professional dealers 
in misfortune ; undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a moment, 
and you pass out of the individual life you were living into the 
rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. Do the worst 
thing you can, or suffer the worst that can be thought of, you find 
yourself in a category of humanity that stretches back as far as 
Cain, and with an expert at your elbow that has studied your case 
all out beforehand, and is waiting for you with his implements of 
hemp or mahogany. I believe, if a man were to be burned in any of 
our cities to-morrow for heresy, there would be found a master 
of ceremonies that knew just how many fagots were necessary, 
and the best way of arranging the whole matter. 

So we have not won the Goodwood-cup ; mi contraire, we 

were a "bad fifth," if not worse than that; and trying it again, 
and the third time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am as 
patriotic as any of my fellow-citizens, — too patriotic in fact, for I 
have got into hot water by loving too much of my country ; in short, 
if any man, whose fighting weight is not more than eight stone 
four pounds, disputes it I am ready to discuss the point with him. 
I should have gloried to see the stars and stripes in front at the 
finish. I love my country, and I love horses. Stubb's old mezzo- 
tint of Eclipse hangs over my desk, and Herring's portrait of Pleni- 
potentiary, — whom I saw run at Epsom, — over my fireplace. Did 
I not elope from school to see Revenge, and Prospect, and Little 
John, and Peacemaker run over the race-course where now yon 
suburban village flourishes, in the year eighteen hundred and ever- 
so-few 1 Though I never owned a horse, have I not been the pro- 
prietor of six equine females, of which one was the prettiest little 



496 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

" Morgin " that ever stepped ? Listen, then, to an opinion I have 
often expressed long before this venture of ours in England. 
Horse-racmg" is not a republican institution ; \\orst-trotting is. 
Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, and everybody knows 
they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All that matter 
about blood and speed we won't discuss ; we understand all that ; 
useful, very, — of course, — great obligations to the Godolphin 
" Arabian," and the rest. I say racing horses are essentially gam- 
bling implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am not preach- 
ing at this moment ; I may read you one of my sermons some other 
morning ; but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is not 
republican. It belongs to two phases of society, — a cankered over- 
civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the reckless life 
of borderers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism of a civilization 
resolved into its primitive elements. Real republicanism is stern 
and severe ; its essence is not in forms of government, but in the 
omnipotence of public opinion which grows out of it. This public 
opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice or stocks, but it can and 
does compel it to keep comparatively quiet. But horse-racing is the 
most public way of gambling ; and with all its immense attractions 
to the sense and the feelings, — to which I plead very susceptible, 

— the disguise is too thin that covers it, and everybody knows what 
it means. Its supporters are the Southern gentry, — fine fellows, 
no doubt, but not republicans exactly, as we understand the term, 

— a few Northern millionaires more or less thoroughly millioned, 
who do not represent the real people, and the mob of sporting men, 
the best of whom are commonly idlers, and the worst very bad 
neighbors to have near one in a crowd, or to meet in a dark alley. 
In England, on the other hand, with its aristocratic institutions, 
racing is a natural growth enough ; the passion for it spreads down- 
ward through all classes, from the Queen to the costermonger. 
London is like a shelled corn-cob on the Derby day, and there 
is not a clerk who could raise the money to hire a saddle with an 
old hack under it that can sit down on his office-stool the next 
day without wincing. 

Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a moment. 
The racer is incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 497 

upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's " Httle joker." The trotter 
is essentially and daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for 
sporting men. 

What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is 
most cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and 
that the trotting horses of America beat the world .? And why should 
we have expected that the pick — if it was the pick — of our few 
and far-between racing stables should beat the pick of England and 
France ? Throw over the fallacious time-test, and there was nothing 
to show for it but a natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we all 
have, with a thoroughly provincial conceit, which some of us must 
plead guilty to. 

We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we shall. As a 
moralist and occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. 
Wherever the trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk 
omnibuses, lively bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly 
butcher's wagon, the cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive 
with wife and child, — all the forms of moral excellence, except 
truth, which does not agree with any kind of horse-flesh. The 
racer brings with him gambling, cursing, swearing, drinking, the 
eating of oysters, and a distaste for mob-caps and the middle- 
aged virtues. 

And by the way, let me beg you not to call a trotting match a 
race, and not to speak of a "thoroughbred" as a ''^blooded'' horse, 
unless he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your 
saying "blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we sent 
out Posterior and Posterioress, the winners of the great national 
four-mile race in 7:18!-, and they happen to get beaten, pay your 
bets, and behave like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. 

[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill-temper con- 
densed in the above paragraph. To brag little, — to show well, — 
to crow gently, if in luck, — to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, 
if beaten, are the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that 
I think we have shown them in any great perfection of late.] 

Apropos of horses. Do you know how important good 

jockeying is to authors .-' Judicious management ; letting the 
public see your animal just enough, and not too much ; holding 



498 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

him up hard when the market is too full of him ; letting him out 
at just the right buying intervals ; always gently feeling his mouth ; 
never slacking and never jerking the rein ; — this is what I mean 
by jockeying. 

When an author has a number of books out, a cunning 

hand will keep them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner- 
plates ; fetching each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an 
advertisement, a puff, or a quotation. 

Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin to mul- 
tiply fast in the papers, without obvious reason, there is a new 
book or a new edition coming. The extracts are ground-bait. 

Literary life is full of curious phenomena. I don't know 

that here is anything more noticeable than what we may call 
coiivcntiojial reputations. There is a tacit understanding in every 
community of men of letters that they will not disturb the popular 
fallacy respecting this or that electro-gilded celebrity. There are 
various reasons for this forbearance ; one is old ; one is rich ; one 
is good-natured ; one is such a favorite with the pit that it would 
not be safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The venerable 
augurs of the literary or scientific temple may smile faintly when 
one of the tribe is mentioned ; but the farce is in general kept up 
as well as the Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a 
man to stay with you, with the implied compact between you that 
he shall by no means think of doing it. A poor wretch he must 
be who would wantonly sit down on one of these bandbox reputa- 
tions. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, which is a tear of unannealed glass, 
lasts indefinitely, if you keep it from meddling hands ; but break 
its tail off, and it explodes and resolves itself into powder. These 
celebrities I speak of are the Prince-Rupert's-drops of the learned 
and polite world. See how the papers treat them ! What an array 
of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, that can be arranged in ever so 
many charming patterns, is at their service! How kind the "Criti- 
cal Notices " — where small authorship comes to pick up chips of 
praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy — always are to them ! Well, 
life would be nothing without paper-credit and other fictions ; so 
let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; don't puncture 
their swimming-bladders ; don't come down on their pasteboard 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 499 

boxes ; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable reputa- 
tions, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be house- 
hold words a thousand years from now. 

"A thousand years is a good while," said the old gentleman 
who sits opposite, thoughtfully. 

Where have I been for the last three or four days.? Down 

at the Island, deer-shooting. — How many did I bag? I brought 
home one buck shot. — The Island is where.? No matter. It is 
the most splendid domain that any man looks upon in these lati- 
tudes. Blue sea around it, and running up into its heart, so that 
the little boat slumbers like a baby in lap, while the tall ships are 
stripping naked to fight the hurricane outside, and storm-stay-sails 
banging and flying in ribbons. Trees, in stretches of miles ; beeches, 
oaks, most numerous ; — many of them hung with moss, looking like 
bearded ' Druids ; some coiled in the clasp of huge, dark-stemmed 
grape-vines. Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep, 
and the winds come so finely sifted that they are as soft as swan's 
down. Rocks scattered about, — Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh- 
water lakes; one of them, Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of flashing 
pickerel lying under the lily-pads like tigers in the jungle. Six 
pounds of ditto one morning for breakfast. Ego fecit. 

The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my 
Latin. No, sir, I said, — you need not trouble yourself. There is 
a higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and 
Stoddard. Then I went on. 

Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the 
like of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing 
in the shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, 
which has not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has 
welcomed all who were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergy- 
man who came to breathe the sea-air with its medicinal salt and 
iodine, to the great statesman who turned his back on the affairs 
of empire, and smoothed his Olympian forehead, and flashed his 
white teeth in merriment over the long table, where his wit was 
the keenest and his story the best. 

[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. 
I don't believe / talked just so ; but the fact is, in reporting one's 



500 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

conversation, one cannot help Blair-'mg it up more or less, ironing 
out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and 
plaiting a little sometimes ; it is as natural as prinking at the 
looking-glass.] 

How can a man help writing poetry in such a place ? Every- 
body does write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept 
in the library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of unpub- 
lished verse, — some by well-known hands, and others, quite as good, 
by the last people you would think of as versifiers, — men who could 
pension off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten acres 
of Boston common, if it was for sale, with what they had left. Of 
course I had to write my little copy of verses with the rest ; here 
it is, if you will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, ves- 
sels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who 
observes them from the north or south, according to the tack they 
are sailing upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the 
great mansion, I saw these perpetual changes, and moralized thus : — 

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green 

To the billows of foam-crested blue, 
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen 

Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue : 
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray 

As the chaff in the stroke of the flail ; 
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way 

The sun gleaming bright on her sail. 

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun, — 

Of breakers that whiten and roar ; 
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun 

They see him that gaze from the shore ! 
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, 

To the rock that is under his lee. 
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, 

O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. 

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves. 

Where life and its ventures are laid. 
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves 

May see us in sunshine or shade ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 50 1 

Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, 

We "11 trim our broad sail as before. 
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark. 

Nor ask how we look from the shore ! 

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. 

Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, 
if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them 
or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force 
enough to hurt itself ; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. 
We frequently see persons in insane hospitals, sent there in con- 
sequence of what are called religious mental disturbances. I con- 
fess that I think better of them than of many who hold the same 
notions, and keep their wits and appear to enjoy life very well, out- 
side of the asylums. Any decent person ought to go mad, if he 
really holds such or such opinions. It is very much to his discredit 
in every point of view, if he does not. What is the use of my say- 
ing what some of these opinions are } Perhaps more than one of 
you hold such as I should think ought to send you straight over to 
Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or any human feel- 
ing in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, cruel, heathenish, that 
makes life hopeless for the most of mankind and perhaps for entire 
races, — anything that assumes the necessity of the extermination 
of instincts which were given to be regulated, — no matter by what 
name you call it, — no matter whether a fakir, or a monk, or a dea- 
con believes it, — if received, ought to produce insanity in every well- 
regulated mind. That condition becomes a normal one, under the 
circumstances. I am very much ashamed of some people for retain- 
ing their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they were 
not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they would 
become nonconipotcs at once. 

[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the 
schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other ; but 
whether they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not 
clear. — It would be natural enough. Stranger things have hap- 
pened. Love and Death enter boarding-houses without asking the 
price of board, or whether there is room for them. Alas, these 
young people are poor and pallid ! Love sJiould be both rich and 



502 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

rosy, but must be either rich or rosy. Talk about military duty ! 
What is that to the warfare of a married maid-of-all-work, with the 
title of mistress, and an American female constitution, which col- 
lapses just in the middle third of life, and comes out vulcanized 
India-rubber, if it happen to live through the period when health 
and strength are most wanted ?] 

Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. I have 

played the part of the " Poor Gentleman," before a great many 
audiences, — more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not 
wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor mustaches of burnt cork ; but 
I was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the 
proper hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my 
countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen 
my name stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show 
myself in the place by daylight. I have gone to a town with 
a sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere 
announced as the most desperate of buffos, — one who was obliged 
to restrain himself in the full exercise of his powers, from pru- 
dential considerations. I have been through as many hardships as 
Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I have traveled 
in cars until the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have 
run off the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts, and sat behind 
females that would have the window open when one could not 
wink without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I shall give 
you some of my experiences one of these days ; — I will not 
now, for I have something else for you. 

Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in county lyceum- 
halls, are one thing, — and private theatricals, as they may be seen 
in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are another. 
Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do not 
think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of our 
stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their 
graces and talents ; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, 
high-bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, 
acting in those love-dramas that make us young again to look 
upon, when real youth and beauty will play them for us. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 503 

Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did 

not see the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and 
that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, 
and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, 
very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of 
course ends charmingly ; there is a general reconciliation, and all 
concerned form a line and take each others' hands, as people 
always do after they have made up their quarrels, — and then the 
curtain falls, — if it does not stick, as it commonly does at private 
theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull it 
down, which he does, blushing violently. 

Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my 
caesuras and cadences for anybody ; so if you do not like the 
heroic, or iambic trimeter brachy-catalectic, you had better not 
wait to hear it. 

THIS IS IT 

A Prologue ? Well, of course the ladies know ; 
I have my doubts. No matter, — here we go ! 
What is a Prologue .'' Let our Tutor teach : 
Pro means beforehand ; logos stands for speech. 
'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, 
The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings ; — 
Prologues in meter are to o^&x pros 
As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. 

" The world 's a stage," — as Shakespeare said, one day ; 

The stage a world — was what he meant to say. 

The outside world 's a blunder, that is clear ; 

The real world that Nature meant is here. 

Here every foundling finds its lost mamma ; 

Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa ; 

Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, 

The cheats are taken in the traps they laid ; 

One after one the troubles all are past 

Till the fifth act comes right side up at last. 

When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all. 

Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. 



504 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

— Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, 

And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. 

— When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, 
And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, 

Cries, " Help, kyind Heaven ! " and drops upon her knees 
On the green — baize, — beneath the (canvas) trees, — 
See to her side avenging Valor fly : — 
" Ha ! Villain ! Draw ! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die ! " 

— When the poor hero flounders in despair, 
Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire, — 
Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy. 

Sobs on his neck, " My boy ! Mv boy ! ! MY BOY ! ! ! " 

Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night 
Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. 
Ladies, attend ! While woful cares and doubt 
Wrong the soft passion in the world without, 
Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, 
One thing is certain : Love will triumph here ! 

Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule, — 

The world's great masters, when you 're out of school, — 

Learn the brief moral of our evening's play : 

Man has his will, — but woman has her way ! 

While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire. 

Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire, — 

The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves 

Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. 

All earthly powers confess your sovereign art 

But that one rebel, — woman's wilful heart 

All foes you master ; but a woman's wit 

Lets daylight through you ere you know you 're hit. 

So, just to picture what her art can do. 

Hear an old story made as good as new. 

Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade. 
Alike was famous for his arm and blade. 
One day a prisoner Justice had to kill 
Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. 
Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, 
Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. 
His falchion lighted with a sudden gleam, 
As the pike's armor flashes in the streani. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 505 

He sheathed his blade ; he turned as if to go ; 
The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. 
"Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," 
The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) 

" Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied ; 

" Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." 

He held his snuff-box, — - " Now then, if you please ! " 

The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, 

Off his head tumbled, — bowled along the floor, — 

Bounced down the steps ; — the prisoner said no more ! 

Woman ! thy falchion is a glittering eye ; 

If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die ! 

Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head ; 

We die with love, and never dream we 're dead ! 

The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No alterations 
were suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, so far as I know. 
Sometimes people criticise the poems one sends them, and sug- 
gest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that 
wanted Burns to alter " Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last 

line thus } — 

" Edward ! " Chains and slavery ! 

Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee 
for a certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive 
and convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems 
the president of the day was what is called a " teetotaller." I received 
a note from him in the following words, containing the copy 
subjoined, with the emendations annexed to it. 

"Dear Sir, — Your poem gives good satisfaction to the com- 
mittee. The sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, 
however, those generally entertained by this community. I have 
therefore consulted the clergyman of this place, who has made 
some slight changes, which he thinks will remove all objections, 
and keep the valuable portions of the poem. Please to inform me 
of your charge for said poem. Our means are limited, etc., etc., 

etc. 

" Yours with respect." 



So6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



HERE IT IS. — WITH THE SLIGHT ALTERATIONS! 

Come ! fill a fresh bumper, — for why should we go 

logwood 
While the n e ctar still reddens our cups as they flow ? 

decoctjon 
Pour out the rich juices still bright with the sun, 

dye stuff 
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubio &shall run. 

half-ripened apples 
The purple - globed clusters their life-dews have bled ; 

taste sugar of lead 

How sweet is the breath of the fragranc e tfeey &h«4, 

rank poisons winesJJ I 

For summer's last roses lie hid in the winee 

stable-boys smoking long-nines 



That were garnered by m aidens who laughed t hrough t-h« vineo . 

scowl howl scoff sneer 

Then a s mile , and a gia ss^ and a toaet , and a choor, 

strychnine and whisky, and ratsbane and beer 
For all the good wine , a»4 w e 'v e s©H*e ©f it h e r e ! 
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 

Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all ! 
Leftg live- t-he- gay- s e rvant t-hat l augha fef «s- ali-! 

The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me 
to charge the committee double, — which I did. But as I never 
got my pay, I don't know that it made much difference. I am a 
very particular person about having all I write printed as I write 
it. I require to see a proof, a revise, a re-revise, and a double 
re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified impression of all my productions, 
especially verse. Manuscripts are such puzzles ! Why, I was read- 
ing some lines near the end of the last number of this journal, 
when I came across one beginning 

The stream flashes by, 

Now as no stream had been mentioned, I was perplexed to know 
what it meant. It proved, on inquiry, to be only a mis-print for 
" dream." Think of it ! No wonder so many poets die young. 

I have nothing more to report at this time, except two pieces 
of advice I gave to the young women at table. One relates to a 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 507 

vulgarism of language, which I grieve to say is sometimes heard even 
from female lips, the other is of more serious purport, and applies 
to such as contemplate a change of condition, — matrimony, in fact. 

— The woman who " calc'lates " is lost. 

— Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. 



HENRY THOREAU 

[Born at Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 181 7; died at Concord, May 6, 1862] 

SOLITUDE 

From " Walden " 

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, 
and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a 
strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the 
stony shore to the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as 
well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, 
all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump 
to usher in the night, and the note of the whippoorwill is borne on 
the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the flutter- 
ing alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath ; yet, like 
the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves 
raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth 
reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and 
roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the 
rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest 
animals do not repose, but seek their prey now ; the fox, and skunk, 
and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are 
Nature's watchmen, — links which connect the days of animated life. 

When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there 
and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of ever- 
green, or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They 
who come rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest 
into their hands to play with by the way, which they leave, either 
intentionally or accidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven 
it into a ring, and dropped it on my table. I could always tell if 



5o8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

visitors had called in my absence, either by the bended twigs or 
grass, or the print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or age 
or quality they were by some slight trace left, as a flower dropped, 
or a bunch of grass plucked and thrown away, even as far off as 
the railroad, half a mile distant, or by the lingering odor of a cigar 
or pipe. Nay, I was frequently notified of the passage of a traveller 
along the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe. 

There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is 
never quite at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, 
nor the pond, but somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn 
by us, appropriated and fenced in some way, and reclaimed from 
Nature. For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some 
square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to 
me by men ? My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house 
is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my 
own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself ; a distant 
view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, 
and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But 
for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. 
It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, 
my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. 
At night there was never a traveller passed my house, or knocked 
at my door, more than if I were the first or last man ; unless it 
were in the spring, when at long intervals some came from the 
village to fish for pouts, — they plainly fished much more in the 
Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks with 
darkness, — but they soon retreated, usually with light baskets, 
and left " the world to darkness and to me," and the black kernel 
of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. 
I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, 
though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles 
have been introduced. 

Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, 
the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any 
natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy 
man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in 
the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There was never yet 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 509 

such a storm but it was /Eolian music to a healthy and innocent 
ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar 
sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that 
nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle rain which 
waters my beans and keeps me in the house to-day is not drear 
and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my 
hoeing them, it is far more worth than my hoeing. If it should 
continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and 
destroy the potatoes in the lowlands, it would still be good for the 
grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be 
good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, 
it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond 
any deserts that I am conscious of ; as if I had a warrant and surety 
at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially 
guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible 
they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed 
by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I 
came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighbor- 
hood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be 
alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time con- 
scious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my 
recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts pre- 
vailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society 
in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in eveiy sound 
and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friend- 
liness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the 
fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I 
have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle ex- 
panded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so 
distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, 
even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, 
and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a 
person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange 
to me again. — 

" Mourning untimely consumes the sad ; 
Few are their days in the land of the living, 
Beautiful daughter of Toscar." 



5IO READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rainstorms 
in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the after- 
noon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and 
pelting ; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which 
many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves. In 
those driving northeast rains which tried the village houses so, 
when the maids stood ready with mop and pail in front entries to 
keep the deluge out, I sat behind my door in my little house, which 
was all entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its protection. In one heavy 
thunder-shower the lightning struck a large pitch-pine across the 
pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove 
from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches 
wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it again the 
other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding 
that mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resist- 
less bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. Men 
frequently say to me, " I should think you would feel lonesome 
down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days 
and nights especially," I am tempted to reply to such, — This 
whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far 
apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder 
star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instru- 
ments } Why should I feel lonely ? is not our planet in the Milky 
Way } This which you put seems to me not to be the most im- 
portant question. What sort of space is that which separates a man 
from his fellows and makes him solitary ? I have found that no 
exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one an- 
other. What do we want most to dwell near to .? Not to many 
men surely, the depot, the post-ofifice, the bar-room, the meeting- 
house, the schoolhouse, the grocery. Beacon Hill, or the Five 
Points, where men most congregate, but to the perennial source 
of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to 
issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots 
in that direction. This will vary with different natures, but this 
is the place where a wise man will dig his cellar. ... I one eve- 
ning overtook one of my townsmen, who has accumulated what 
is called "a handsome property," — though I never got a /air 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 51 1 

view of it, — on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to 
market, who inquired of me how I could bring my mind to give 
up so many of the comforts of life. I answered that I was very 
sure I liked it passably well ; I was not joking. And so I went 
home to my bed, and left him to pick his way throug+i the dark- 
ness and the mud to Brighton, — or Brighttown, — which place 
he would reach some time in the morning. 

Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man 
makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may 
occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our 
senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and transient 
circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause 
of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power which fash- 
ions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually be- 
ing executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, 
with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work 
we are. 

" How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers 
of Heaven and of Earth ! " 

" We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them ; we seek 
to hear them, and we do not hear them ; identified with the sub- 
stance of things, they cannot be separated from them." 

" They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify 
their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to 
offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of 
subtile intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, 
on our right ; they environ us on all sides." 

We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little inter- 
esting to me. Can we not do without the society of our gossips a 
little while under these circumstances, — have our own thoughts 
to cheer us.'' Confucius says truly, "Virtue does not remain as 
an abandoned orphan ; it must of necessity have neighbors." 

With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By 
a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and 
their consequences ; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a 
torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either 
the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on 



512 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition ; on the other hand, 
I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern 
me much more. I only know myself as a human entity ; the scene, 
so to speak, of thoughts and affections ; and am sensible of a certain 
doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from 
another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the 
presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a 
part of me, but .spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note 
of it ; and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may 
be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was 
a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was 
concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors 
and friends sometimes. 

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To 
be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipat- 
ing. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so 
companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely 
when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. 
A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he 
v^ill. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene 
between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one 
of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish 
in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods 
all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is 
employed ; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down 
in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where 
he can " see the folks," and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate, 
himself for his day's solitude ; and hence he wonders how the 
student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day 
without ennui and "the blues" ; but he does not realize that the 
student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and 
chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the 
same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be 
a more condensed form of it. 

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, 
not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We 
meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 513 

of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a 
certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this 
frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. 
We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fire- 
side every night ; we live thick and are in each other's way, and 
stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some 
respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for 
all important and hearty communications. Consider the girls in a 
factory, — never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better 
if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. 
The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him. 

I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine 
and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved 
by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his 
diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be 
real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we 
may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural 
society, and come to know that we are never alone. 

I have a great deal of company in my house ; especially in the 
morning, when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, 
that some one may convey an idea of my situation. I am no more 
lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden 
Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray ? And yet 
it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure 
tint of its waters. The sun is alone, except in thick weather, when 
there sometimes appear to be two, but one is a mock sun. God is 
alone, — but the devil, he is far from being alone ; he sees a great 
deal of company ; he is legion. I am no more lonely than a single 
mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a 
horse-fly, or a humble-bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill 
Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an 
April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house. 

I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when the 
snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old settler 
and original proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, 
and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods ; who tells me stories 
of old time and of new eternity ; and between us we manage to 



514 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of 
things, even without apples or cider, — a most wise and humorous 
friend, whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than 
ever did Goffe or Whalley ; and though he is thought to be dead, 
none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too, dwells 
in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous 
herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and listen- 
ing to her fables ; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility, and 
her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell 
me the original of every fable, and on what fact every one is 
founded, for the incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy 
and lusty old dame, who delights in all weathers and seasons, and 
is likely to outlive all her children yet. 

The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature, — of 
sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter, — such health, such 
cheer, they afford forever ! and such sympathy have they ever with 
our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the sun's bright- 
ness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain 
tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in mid- 
summer, if any man should ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I 
not have intelligence with the earth ? Am I not partly leaves and 
vegetable mould myself ? 

What is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented .? Not 
my or thy great-grandfather's, but our great-grandmother Nature's 
universal, vegetable, botanic medicines, by which she has kept her- 
self young always, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, and fed 
her health with their decayed fatness. For my panacea, instead of 
one of those quack vials of a mixture dipped from Acheron and 
the Dead Sea, which come out of those long shallow black-schooner 
looking wagons which we sometimes see made to carry bottles, let 
me have a draught of undiluted morning air. Morning air ! If men 
will not drink of this at the fountain-head of the day, why, then, 
we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit 
of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in 
this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till noonday even 
in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long ere that and 
follow westward the steps of Aurora. I am no worshipper of 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 515 

Hygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doctor ^Esculapius, 
and who is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one 
hand, and in the other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes 
drinks ; but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter, who was the 
daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who had the power of re- 
storing gods and men to the vigor of youth. She was probably the 
only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady 
that ever walked the globe, and wherever she came it was spring. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

[Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 181 9; died at Cambric 

August 12, 1 891] 

MY LOVE 

Not as all other women are 
Is she that to my soul is dear ; 
Her glorious fancies come from far, 
Beneath the silver evening star, 
And yet her heart is ever near. 

Great feelings hath she of her own. 
Which lesser souls may never know ; 
God giveth them to her alone. 
And sweet they are as any tone 
Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. 

Yet in herself she dwelleth not. 
Although no home were half so fair ; 
No simplest duty is forgot. 
Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
That doth not in her sunshine share. 

She doeth little kindnesses, 

Which most leave undone, or despise ; 

For naught that sets one heart at ease, 

And giveth happiness or peace. 

Is low esteemed in her eyes. 



5l6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

She hath no scorn of common things, 
And, though she seem of other birth. 
Round us her heart intwines and clings. 
And patiently she folds her wings 
To tread the humble paths of earth. 

Blessing she is : God made her so. 
And deeds of week-day holiness 
Fall from her noiseless as the snow, 
Nor hath she ever chanced to know 
That aught were easier than to bless. 

She is most fair, and thereunto 
Her life doth rightly harmonize ; 
Feeling or thought that was not true 
Ne'er made less beautiful the blue 
Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 

She is a woman : one in whom 
The spring-time of her childish years 
Hath never lost its fresh perfume, 
Though knowing well that life hath room 
For many blights and many tears, 

I love her with a love as still 
As a broad river's peaceful might. 
Which, by high tower and lowly mill. 
Seems following its own wayward will. 
And yet doth ever flow aright. 

And, on its full, deep breast serene, 

Like quiet isles my duties lie ; 

It flows around them and between, 

And makes them fresh and fair and green. 

Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 517 

SHE CAME AND WENT 

As a twig trembles, which a bird 

Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, 
So is my memory thrilled and stirred ; — 
■ I only know she came and went. 

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, 
The blue dome's measureless content, 

So my soul held that moment's heaven ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps 
The orchards full of bloom and scent. 

So clove her May my wintry sleeps ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

An angel stood and met my gaze, 

Through the low doorway of my tent ; 

The tent is struck, the vision stays ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

O, when the room grows slowly dim. 

And life's last oil is nearly spent. 
One gush of light these eyes will brim, 

Only to think she came and went. 

TO THE DANDELION 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way. 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold. 

High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found. 
Which not the rich earth's ample round 

May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 

Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 



5i8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 

'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand. 
Though most hearts never understand 

To take it at God's value, but pass by 

The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 

Not in mid June the golden cuirassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 
In the white lily's breezy tent. 

His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 

From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass. 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways. 

Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass. 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
That from the distance sparkle through 

Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song. 

Who from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long. 

And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
With news from heaven, which he could bring 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 519 

Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
When birds and flowers were happy peers. 



How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 

Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 

On all these living pages of God's book. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl. 

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch deep with pearl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, 
And still fluttered down the snow. 



I stood and watched by the window 
The noiseless work of the sky. 

And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, 
Like brown leaves whirling by. 



520 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 
Where a Httle headstone stood ; 

How the flakes were folding it gently, 
As did robins the babes in the wood. 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 

Saying, "' Father, who makes it snow ? " 

And I told of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 

Again I looked at the snow-fall, 
And thought of the leaden sky 

That arched o'er our first great sorrow. 
When that mound was heaped so high. 

I remembered the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow, 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 

'" The snow that husheth all, 
Darling, the merciful Father 

Alone can make it fall ! " 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her ; 

And she, kissing back, could not know 
That my kiss was given to her sister. 

Folded close under deepening snow. 



ALADDIN 

When I was a beggarly boy. 
And lived in a cellar damp, 

I had not a friend nor a toy. 
But I had Aladdin's lamp ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 521 

When I could not sleep for cold, 

I had fire enough in my brain, 
And builded, with roofs of gold. 

My beautiful castles in Spain ! 

Since then I have toiled day and night, 

I have money and power good store, 
But I 'd give all my lamps of silver bright, 

For the one that is mine no more ; 
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose. 

You gave, and may snatch again ; 
I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, 

For I own no more castles in Spain ! 

LONGING 

Of all the myriad moods of mind 

That through the soul come thronging 
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, 

So beautiful as Longing ? 
The thing we long for, that we are 

For one transcendent moment, 
Before the Present poor and bare 

Can make its sneering comment. 

Still, through our paltry stir and strife. 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing moulds in clay what Life 

Carves in the marble Real ; 
To let the new life in, we know, 

Desire must ope the portal ; — 
Perhaps the longing to be so 

Helps make the soul immortal. 

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will 

With our poor earthward striving ; 
We quench it that we may be still 

Content with merely living ; 



522 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But, would we learn that heart's full scope 
Which we are hourly wronging, 

Our lives must climb from hope to hope 
And realize our longing. 

Ah ! let us hope that to our praise 

Good God not only reckons 
The moments when we tread his ways, 

But when the spirit beckons, — 
That some slight good is also wrought 

Beyond self-satisfaction, 
When we are simply good in thought, 

Howe'er we fail in action. 



SONNET 

Great Truths are portions of the soul of man ; 

Great souls are portions of Eternity ; 

Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran 

With lofty message, ran for thee and me ; 

For God's law, since the starry song began, 

Hath been, and still for evermore must be. 

That every deed which shall outlast Time's span 

Must spur the soul to be erect and free ; 

Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung ; 

Too many noble souls have thought and died, 

Too many mighty poets lived and sung. 

And our good Saxon, from lips purified 

With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung 

Too long to have God's holy cause denied. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 523 

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS 

From " The Biglow Papers " 

SERIES I 

Guvener B, is a sensible man ; 

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks ; 

He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, 

An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes ; 

But John P. 

Robinson he 

Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

My ! aint it terrible ? Wut shall we du ? 

We can't never choose him o' course, — thet 's flat; 
Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you ?) 
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that ; 
Fer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 

He 's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf ; 
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, — 

He 's ben true to one party, — an' thet is himself ; — 
So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 

He don't vally principle more 'n an old cud ; 
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, 
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood ? 
So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 



524 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, 

With good old idees o' wut 's right an' wut aint, 
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, 
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this kind o' thing 's an exploded idee. 

The side of our country must oilers be took, 

An' Presidunt Polk, you know, Jie is our country. 
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book 
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the/^r contry ; 
An' John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. 

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies ; 

Sez they 're nothin' on airth but ]QSt fee, fazv, fum : 
An' thet all this big talk of our destinies 
Is half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half rum ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez it aint no sech thing ; an', of course, so must we. 

Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, 
An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife. 
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee. 

Wal, it 's a marcy we 've gut folks to tell us 

The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow, — 
God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, 
To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough ; 
Fer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez the world '11 go right, ef he hollers out Gee ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 525 

THE COURTIN' 

From " The Biglow Papers " 

SERIES II 

God makes sech nights, all white an' still 

Fur 'z you can look or listen, 
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 

All silence an' all glisten. 

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 

An' peeked in thru' the winder, 
An' there sot Huldy all alone, 

'ith no one nigh to hender. 

A fireplace filled the room's one side 

With half a cord o' wood in — 
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) 

To bake ye to a puddin'. 

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out 

Towards the pootiest, bless her. 
An' leetle flames danced all about 

The chiny on the dresser. 

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung. 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The ole queen 's-arm thet gran'ther Young 

Fetched back from Concord busted. 

The very room, coz she was in, 

Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 
An' she looked full ez rosy agin 

Ez the apples she was peelin'. 

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look 

On sech a blessed cretur, 
A dogrose blushin' to a brook 

Ain't modester nor sweeter. 



526 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

He was six foot o' man, A i, 

Clear grit an' human natur' ; 
None could n't quicker pitch a ton 

Nor dror a furrer straighter. 



He 'd sparked it with full twenty gals, 
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em. 

Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells — 
All is, he could n't love 'em. 

But long o' her his veins 'ould run 

All crinkly like curled maple. 
The side she breshed felt full o' sun 

Ez a south slope in Ap'il. 



She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 

Ez hisn in the choir ; 
My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, 

She knowed the Lord was nigher. 



An' she 'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, 
When her new meetin'-bunnet 

Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 
O' blue eyes sot upon it. 

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some ! 

She seemed to 've gut a new soul. 
For she felt sartin-sure he 'd come, 

Down to her very shoe-sole. 

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, 
A-raspin' on the scraper, — 

All ways to once her feelins flew 
Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 527 

He kin' o' I'itered on the mat, 

Some doubtfle o' the sekle. 
His heart kep goin' pity-pat, 

But hern went pity Zekle. 

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk 

Ez though she wished him furder, 
An' on her apples kep' to work, 

Parin' away Hke murder. 

" You want to see my Pa, I s'pose ? " 

Wal ... no ... I come dasignin' " 

" To see my Ma .? She 's sprinklin' clo'es 
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." 

To say why gals acts so or so, 

Or don't, 'ould be presumin' ; 
Mebby to mean yes an' say no 

Comes nateral to women. 

He stood a spell on one foot fust. 

Then stood a spell on t' other, 
An' on which one he felt the wust 

He could n't ha' told ye nuther. 

Says he, "I 'd better call agin " ; 

Says she, " Think likely, Mister " : 
Thet last word pricked him like a pin. 

An' . . . Wal, he up an' kist her. 

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 

Huldy sot pale ez ashes. 
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips 

An' teary roun' the lashes. 



528 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

For she was jes' the quiet kind 

Whose naturs never vary, 
Like streams that keep a summer mind 

Snovvhid in Jenooary. 

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued 

Too tight for all expressin', 
Tell mother see how metters stood, 

An' gin 'em both her blessin'. 

Then her red come back like the tide 

Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
An' all I know is they was cried 

In meetin' come nex' Sunday. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 
PRELUDE TO PART FIRST 

Over his keys the musing organist. 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 

Along the wavering vista of his dream. 

Not only around our infancy 
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies : 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 



I 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 529 

Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 



Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us. 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the asking ; 
No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen. 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might. 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 



530 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer. 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green ; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near. 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing. 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
Everything is happy now. 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'T is the natural way of living : 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 531 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes of the season's youth, 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow ? 

PART FIRST 



" My golden spurs now bring to me, 
And bring to me my richest mail, 

For to-morrow I go over land and sea 
In search of the Holy Grail ; 

Shall never a bed for me be spread. 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 

Till I begin my vow to keep ; 

Here on the rushes will I sleep. 

And perchance there may come a vision true 

Ere day create the world anew." 

Slowly Sir Launfal 's eyes grew dim. 
Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 

And into his soul the vision flew. 



The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 
In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 
The little birds sang as if it were 
The one day of summer in all the year, 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray : 



532 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, 

And never its gates might opened be, 

Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 

Summer besieged it on every side, 

But the churlish stone her assaults defied ; 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 

Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 

Stretched left and right, 

Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 



The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang. 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang. 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 
In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long. 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf. 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 



IV 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree. 
And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 

The season brimmed all other things up 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 53; 



As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn, 

VI 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 
" Better to me the poor man's crust, 
Better the blessing of the poor. 
Though I turn me empty from his door ; 
That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 
He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
But he who gives but a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight. 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms. 
The heart outstretches its eager palms. 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 

PRELUDE TO PART SECOND 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 



534 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek : 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare ; 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 

And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 

'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 

In his depths serene through the summer day. 

Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky. 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 535 

And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 
And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 
But the wind without was eager and sharp, 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp. 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings. 

Singing, in dreary monotone, 

A Christmas carol of its own. 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 

Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch. 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 

The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 

Through the window-slits of the castle old. 
Build out its piers of ruddy light. 

Against the drift of the cold. 

PART SECOND 

I 

There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun. 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 



536 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old, 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 



Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate. 

For another heir in his earldom sate ; 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 



Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 

For it was just at the Christmas time ; 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime. 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small. 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 

He can count the camels in the sun. 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 

And with its own self like an infant played. 

And waved its signal of palms. 



" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 

The happy camels may reach the spring. 

But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 537 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 



And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in thee 
An image of Him who died on the tree ; 
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns. 
And to thy life were not denied 
The wounds in the hands and feet and side : 
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 



Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust. 
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink. 
And gave the leper to eat and drink : 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 

VII 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 
A light shone round about the place ; 
The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
But stood before him glorified, 



538 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God in Man. 



His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, 

That mingle their softness and quiet in one 

With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; 

And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 

" Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 

In many climes, without avail. 

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 

Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 

Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now ; 

This crust is My body broken for thee, 

This water His blood that died on the tree ; 

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 

In whatso we share with another's need : 

Not what we give, but what we share, — 

For the gift without the giver is bare ; 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me." 



Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : — 
" The Grail in my castle here is found ! 
Hang my idle armor up on the wall. 
Let it be thfe spider's banquet-hall ; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 



The castle gate stands open now. 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough : 
No longer scowl the turrets tall. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 539 

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 

She entered with him in disguise, 

And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground, 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round ; 

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 

Has hall and bower at his command ; 

And there 's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION 

JULY 21, 1865 
I 

Weak-winged is song, 

Nor aims at that clear-ethered height 

Whither the brave deed climbs for light : 

We seem to do them wrong. 
Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse 
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, 
Our trivial song to honor those who come 
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum. 
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, 
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire : 

Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, 
A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave 

Of the unventurous throng. 



To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back 
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood 

The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, 

And offered their fresh lives to make it good 
No lore of Greece or Rome, 

No science peddling with the names of things, 



540 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, 

Can lift our life with wings 
Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, 

And lengthen out our dates 
With that clear fame whose memory sings 
In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates 
Nor such thy teaching. Mother of us all ! 
Not such the trumpet-call 
Of thy diviner mood, 
That could thy sons entice 
From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest 
Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, 
Into War's tumult rude ; 
But rather far that stern device 
The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood 
In the dim, unventured wood, 
The Veritas that lurks beneath 
The letter's unprolific sheath, 
Life of whate'er makes life worth living, 
Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 

One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving. 



Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil 

Amid the dust of books to find her. 
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil. 

With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. 
Many in sad faith sought for her, 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her ; 
But these, our brothers, fought for her 
At life's dear peril wrought for her, 
So loved her that they died for her, 
Tasting the raptured fleetness 
Of her divine completeness : 
Their higher instinct knew 
Those love her best who to themselves are true, 
And what they dare to dream of, dare to do ; 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 541 

They followed her and found her 

Where all may hope to find, 
Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, 
But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. 

Where faith made whole with deed 

Breathes its awakening breath 

Into the lifeless creed. 

They saw her plumed and mailed, 

With sweet, stern face unveiled. 
And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. 



Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides 
Into the silent hollow of the past ; 

What is there that abides 
To make the next age better for the last ? 

Is earth too poor to give us 
Something to live for here that shall outlive us ? 
Some more substantial boon 
Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon ? 
The little that we see 
From doubt is never free ; 
The little that we do 
Is but half-nobly true ; 
With our laborious hiving 
What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, 
Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 
Only secure in every one's conniving, 
A long account of nothings paid with loss, 
Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, 

After our little hour of stmt and rave, 
With all our pasteboard passions and desires, 
Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires. 
Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. 
But stay ! no age was e'er degenerate, 
Unless men held it at too cheap a rate. 
For in our likeness still we shape our fate. 



542 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Ah, there is something here 

Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer 

Something that gives our feeble light 

A high immunity from Night, 

Something that leaps life's narrow bars 
To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven ; 

A seed of sunshine that can leaven 
Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, 

And glorify our clay 
With light from fountains elder than the Day ; 

A conscience more divine than we, 

A gladness fed with secret tears, 

A vexing, forward-reaching sense 

Of some more noble permanence ; 
A light across the sea. 
Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, 
Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years. 



Whither leads the path 
To ampler fates that leads ? 
Not down through flowery meads, 
To reap an aftermath 
Of youth's vainglorious weeds, 
But up the steep, amid the wrath 
And shock of deadly-hostile creeds. 
Where the world's best hope and stay 
By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, 
And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. 
Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 
Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword 

Dreams in its easeful sheath ; 
But some day the live coal behind the thought, 
Whether from Baal's stone obscene, 
Or from the shrine serene 
Of God's pure altar brought, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 543 

Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue and pen 
Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, 
And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, 
Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men : 
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, 
And cries reproachful : " Was it, then, my praise, 
And not myself was loved ? Prove now thy truth ; 
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; 
Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, 
The victim of thy genius, not its mate 1 " 
Life may be given in many ways, 
And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field. 

So bountiful is Fate ; 

But then to stand beside her. 

When craven churls deride her, 
To front a lie in arms and not to yield. 

This shows, methinks, God's plan 

And measure of a stalwart man. 

Limbed like the old heroic breeds. 

Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth. 
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth. 
Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 

VI 

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the Nation he had led. 
With ashes on her head, 
Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 
Forgive me, if from present things I turn 
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn. 
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 

Nature, they say, doth dote. 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan, 

Repeating us by rote : 



544 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 
How beautiful to see 

Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 

W^ho loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; 

One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 
Not lured by any cheat of birth. 
But by his clear-grained human worth, 

And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 

They knew that outward grace is dust ; 
They could not choose but trust 

In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 
And supple-tempered will 

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. 
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; 
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined. 
Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind. 

Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 
Nothing of Europe here, 

Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still, 
Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme deface 
And thwart her genial will ; 
Here was a type of the true elder race, 

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face, 
I praise him not ; it were too late ; 

And some innative weakness there must be 

In him who condescends to victory 

Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait. 
Safe in himself as in a fate. 
So always firmly he : 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 545 

He knew to bide his time, 
And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 

But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. 
Our children shall behold his fame. 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 



Long as man's hope insatiate can discern 
Or only guess some more inspiring goal 
Outside of Self, enduring as the pole. 
Along whose course the flying axles burn 
Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood ; 

Long as below we cannot find 
The meed that stills the inexorable mind ; 
So long this faith to some ideal Good, 
Under whatever mortal names it masks. 
Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood 

That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, 
Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 
While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, 

And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, 
Shall win man's praise and woman's love, 
Shall be a wisdom that we set above 

All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 

A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe 
Laurels that with a living passion breathe 

When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. 
What brings us thronging these high rites to pay. 

And seal these hours the noblest of our year. 
Save that our brothers found this better way ? 



546 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



We sit here in the Promised Land 
That flows with Freedom's honey and milk ; 
But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, 
Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 
We welcome back our bravest and our best ; — 
Ah me ! not all ! some come not with the rest, 
Who went forth brave and bright as any here ! 
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, 
But the sad strings complain, 
And will not please the ear : 
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane 

Again and yet again 
Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. 
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps. 
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, 
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain : 
Fitlier may others greet the living, 
For me the past is unforgiving ; 
I with uncovered head 
Salute the sacred dead. 
Who went, and who return not. — Say not so ! 
'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay. 
But the high faith that failed not by the way ; 
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave ; 
No bar of endless night exiles the brave ; 

And to the saner mind 
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. 
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow ! 
For never shall their aureoled presence lack : 
I see them muster in a gleaming row. 
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show ; 
We find in our dull road their shining track ; 

In every nobler mood 
We feel the orient of their spirit glow. 
Part of our life's unalterable good. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 547 

Of all our saintlier aspiration ; 

They come transfigured back, 
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, 
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation ! 



But is there hope to save 
Even this ethereal essence from the grave ? 
What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong 

Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song ? 
Before my musing eye 
The mighty ones of old sweep by, 
Disvoiced now and insubstantial things. 
As noisy once as we ; poor ghosts of kings. 
Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust. 
And many races, nameless long ago. 
To darkness driven by that imperious gust 
Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow : 
O visionary world, condition strange, 
Where naught abiding is but only Change, 

Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and range ! 
Shall we to more continuance make pretence ? 

Renown builds tombs ; a life-estate is Wit ; 
And, bit by bit. 

The cunning years steal all from us but woe : 
Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. 

But, when we vanish hence. 
Shall they lie forceless in the dark below. 
Save to make green their little length of sods, 
Or deepen pansies for a year or two. 
Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods ? 
Was dying all they had the skill to do ? 
That were not fruitless : but the Soul resents 
Such short-lived service, as if blind events 
Ruled without her, or earth could so endure ; 
She claims a more divine investiture 



54^ READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents ; 
Whate'er she touches doth her nature share ; 
Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air, 

Gives eyes to mountains blind, 
Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, 
And her clear trump sings succor everywhere 
By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind ; 
For soul inherits all that soul could dare : 

Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 
And larger privilege of life than man. 
The single deed, the private sacrifice, 
So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, 
Is covered up ere long from mortal eyes 
With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years ; 
But that high privilege that makes all men peers. 
That leap of heart whereby a people rise 
Up to a noble anger's height. 
And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright. 
That swift validity in noble veins. 
Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, 

Of being set on flame 
By the pure fire that flies all contact base, ^ 

But wraps its chosen with angelic might, 
These are imperishable gains, 
Sure as the sun, medicinal as light. 
These hold great futures in their lusty reins 
And certify to earth a new imperial race. 



Who now shall sneer ? 
Who dare again to say we trace 
Our lines to a plebeian race ? 
Roundhead and Cavalier ! 
Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud ; 
Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 549 

They flit across the ear : 
That is best blood that hath most iron in 't, 
To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 
For what makes manhood dear. 
Tell us not of Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl 
Down from some victor in a border-brawl ! 

How poor their outworn coronets, 
Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath 
Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, 

Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets 
Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears 
Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 
With vain resentments and more vain regrets I 



Not in anger, not in pride. 

Pure from passion's mixture rude 

Ever to base earth allied, 

But with far-heard gratitude, 

Still with heart and voice renewed, 
To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, 
The strain should close that consecrates our brave. 
Lift the heart and lift the head ! 

Lofty be its mood and grave, 

Not without a martial ring, 

Not without a prouder tread 

And a peal of exultation : 

Little right has he to sing 

Through whose heart in such an hour 

Beats no march of conscious power. 

Sweeps no tumult of elation ! 

'T is no Man we celebrate. 

By his country's victories great, 
A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, 

But the pith and marrow of a Nation 



550 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Drawing force from all her men, 
Highest, humblest, weakest, all. 
For her time of need, and then 
Pulsing it again through them, 
Till the basest can no longer cower. 
Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall. 
Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. 
Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is her dower ! 
How could poet ever tower. 
If his passions, hopes, and fears, 
If his triumphs and his tears. 
Kept not measure with his people ? 
Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves ! 
Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple ! 
Banners, adance with triumph, bend your staves ! 
And from every mountain-peak 
Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, 
Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, 
And so leap on in light from sea to sea. 
Till the glad news be sent 
Across a kindling continent, 
Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver : 
" Be proud ! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her ! 
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor. 
She of the open soul and open door, 
With room about her hearth for all mankind ! 
The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more ; 
From her bold front the helm she doth unbind. 
Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, 
And bids her navies, that so lately hurled 
Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in. 
Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 
No challenge sends she to the elder world. 
That looked askance and hated ; a light scorn 
Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees 
She calls her children back, and waits the morn 
Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 551 



Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release ! 
Thy God, in these distempered days. 
Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, 
And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace ! 

Bow down in prayer and praise ! 
No poorest in thy borders but may now 
Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow, 
O Beautiful ! my Country ! ours once more ! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, 

And letting thy set lips. 

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it. 
Among the Nations bright beyond compare ? 

What were our lives without thee ? 

What all our lives to save thee ? 

We reck not what we gave thee ; 

We will not dare to doubt thee. 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare ! 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

An Essay first published in the North American Review for 
January, 1864. The Final Paragraph was added later 

There have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity 
of South Carolina hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into a 
crime whose assured retribution was to leave them either at the 
mercy of the nation they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had 
summoned but could not control, when no thoughtful American 
opened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had no 
longer a country to love and honor. Whatever the result of the 
convulsion whose first shocks were beginning to be felt, there 



552 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

would still be enough square miles of earth for elbow-room ; but 
that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope, of instinct 
and tradition, which swells every man's heart and shapes his thought, 
though perhaps never present to his consciousness, would be gone 
from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. Men might 
gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of priceless associ- 
ations would be reaped no longer ; that fine virtue which sent up 
messages of courage and security from every sod of it would have 
evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably cut off from 
our past, and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives upon 
whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us. 

We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism 
of our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the 
proportions of national peril. We felt an only too natural distrust 
of immense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers. 

That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusiasm with which 
the war was entered-on, that it should follow soon, and that the 
slackening of public spirit should be proportionate to the previous 
over-tension, might well be foreseen by all who had studied human 
nature or history. Men acting gregariously are always in extremes ; 
as they are one moment capable of higher courage, so they are 
liable, the next, to baser depression, and it is often a matter of 
chance whether numbers shall multiply confidence or discourage- 
ment. Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of men, 
than self-deception to suspicion of principles. The only faith that 
wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven 
of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. Enthu- 
siasm is good material for the orator, but the statesman needs 
something more durable to work in, — must be able to rely on the 
deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, without 
which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of moral 
than of material peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. 
Would this fervor of the Free States hold out ? Was it kindled by 
a just feeling of the value of constitutional liberty ? Had it body 
enough to withstand the inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, 
delays ? Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend 
that the choice was between order and anarchy, between the 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 553 

equilibrium of a government by law and the tussle of misrule by 
prominciaviiento? Could a war be maintained without the ordinary 
stimulus of hatred and plunder, and with the impersonal loyalty of 
principle ? These were serious questions, and with no precedent 
to aid in answering them. 

At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, occasion for the 
most anxious apprehension. A President known to be infected 
with the political heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the 
treason, of the Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reins, 
we will not say of power, but of chaos, to a successor known only 
as the representative of a party whose leaders, with long training 
in opposition, had none in the conduct of affairs ; an empty treasury 
was called on to supply resources beyond precedent in the history 
of finance ; the trees were yet growing and the iron unmined with 
which a navy was to be built and armored ; officers without discipline 
were to make a mob into an army ; and, above all, the public 
opinion of Europe, echoed and reinforced with every vague hint 
and every specious argument of despondency by a powerful faction 
at home, was either contemptuously sceptical or actively hostile. 
It would be hard to over-estimate the force of this latter element 
of disintegration and discouragement among a people where every 
citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a reader of news- 
papers. The pedlers of rumor in the North were the most effective 
allies of the rebellion. A nation can be liable to no more insidious 
treachery than that of the telegraph, sending hourly its electric 
thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the community, till 
the excited imagination makes every real danger loom heightened 
with its unreal double. 

And even if we look only at more palpable difficulties, the 
problem to be solved by our civil war was so vast, both in its 
immediate relations and its future consequences ; the conditions 
of its solution were so intricate and so greatly dependent on incal- 
culable and uncontrollable contingencies ; so many of the data, 
whether for hope or fear, were, from their novelty, incapable of 
arrangement under any of the categories of historical precedent, 
that there were moments of crisis when the firmest believer in the 
strength and sufficiency of the democratic theor)^ of government 



554 . READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

might well hold his breath in vague apprehension of disaster. Our 
teachers of political philosophy, solemnly arguing from the precedent 
of some petty Grecian, Italian, or Flemish city, whose long periods 
of aristocracy were broken now and then by awkward parentheses of 
mob, had always taught us that democracies were incapable of the 
sentiment of loyalty, of concentrated and prolonged effort, of far- 
reaching conceptions ; were absorbed in material interests ; impa- 
tient of regular, and much more of exceptional restraint ; had no 
natural nucleus of gravitation, nor any forces but centrifugal ; were 
always on the verge of civil war, and slunk at last into the natural 
almshouse of bankrupt popular government, a military despotism. 
Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew democracy, 
not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong, but merely from books, 
and America only by the report of some fellow-Briton, who, having 
eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had written to The 
Times demanding redress, and drawing a mournful inference of 
democratic instability. Nor were men wanting among ourselves 
who had so steeped their brains in London literature as to mistake 
Cockneyism for European culture, and contempt of their country 
for cosmopolitan breadth of view, and who, owing all they had and 
all they were to democracy, thought it had an air of high-breeding 
to join in the shallow epicedium that our bubble had burst. 

But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the 
timid or the despondent, there were reasons enough of settled 
gravity against any over-confidence of hope. A war — which, 
whether we consider the expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts 
brought into the field, or the reach of the principles involved, may 
fairly be reckoned the most momentous of modern times — was to 
be waged by a people divided at home, unnerved by fifty years of 
peace, under a chief magistrate without experience and without 
reputation, whose every measure was sure to be cunningly hampered 
by a jealous and unscrupulous minority, and who, while dealing 
with unheard-of complications at home, must soothe a hostile 
neutrality abroad, waiting only a pretext to become war. All this 
was to be done without warning and without preparation, while at 
the same time a social revolution was to be accomplished in the 
political condition of four millions of people, by softening the 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 555 

prejudices, allaying the fears, and gradually obtaining the coopera- 
tion, of their unwilling liberators. Surely, if ever there were an 
occasion when the heightened imagination of the historian might 
see Destiny visible intervening in human affairs, here was a knot 
worthy of her shears. Never, perhaps, was any system of govern- 
ment tried by so continuous and searching a strain as ours during 
the last three years ; never has any shown itself stronger ; and 
never could that strength be so directly traced to the virtue and in- 
telligence of the people, — to that general enlightenment and prompt 
efficiency of public opinion possible only under the influence of a 
political framework like our own. We find it hard to understand 
how even a foreigner should be blind to the grandeur of the combat 
of ideas that has been going on here, — to the heroic energy, per- 
sistency, and self-reliance of a nation proving that it knows how 
much dearer greatness is than mere power ; and we own that it is 
impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral condition of 
the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened 
by being even a spectator of such qualities and achievements. That 
a steady purpose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring 
forces which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the 
discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, 
after the war was over ; that a popular excitement has been slowly 
intensified into an earnest national will ; that a somewhat impracti- 
cable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious instrument 
of a practical moral end ; that the treason of covert enemies, the 
jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not 
only useless for mischief, but even useful for good ; that the con- 
scientious sensitiveness of England to the horrors of civil conflict 
has been prevented from complicating a domestic with a foreign 
war ; — all these results, any one of which might suffice to prove 
greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense, the 
good-humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the unselfish 
honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, 
had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult 
eminence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in untried 
emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested ; it is by the 
sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of truth 



556 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly 
to expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoner at length 
gains for his mere statement of a fact the force of argument ; it 
is by a wise forecast which allows hostile combinations to go so far 
as by the inevitable reaction to become elements of his own power, 
that a politician proves his genius for state-craft ; and especially 
it is by so gently guiding public sentiment that he seems to follow 
it, by so yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seem- 
ing obstinate in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of 
compromise without the weakness of concession ; by so instinctively 
comprehending the temper and prejudices of a people as to make 
them gradually conscious of the superior wisdom of his freedom 
from temper and prejudice, — it is by qualities such as these that 
a magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief in a commonwealth 
of freemen. And it is for qualities such as these that we firmly 
believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most prudent 
of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish to 
appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in 
which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise 
one been chosen in his stead. 

'" Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind 
it " ; and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The 
hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the in- 
exhaustible resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of 
dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully 
create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superi- 
ority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious 
presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with 
the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and 
exceptional difficulty. Long habit had accustomed the American 
people to the notion of a party in power, and of a President as its 
creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that the executive 
for the time being represents the abstract idea of government as a 
permanent principle superior to all party and all private interest, 
had gradually become unfamiliar. They had so long seen the 
public policy more or less directed by views of party, and often 
even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect the motives 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 557 

of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our history, 
to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to act upon 
the fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the first 
duty of a government is to defend and maintain its own existence. 
Accordingly, a powerful weapon seemed to be put into the hands 
of the opposition by the necessity under which the administration 
found itself of applying this old truth to new relations. Nor were 
the opposition his only nor his most dangerous opponents. 

The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which 
ethics were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than 
usual. Their leaders were trained to a method of oratory which 
relied for its effect rather on the moral sense than the understand- 
ing. Their arguments were drawn, not so much from experience 
as from general principles of right and wrong. When the war 
came, their system continued to be applicable and effective, for 
here again the reason of the people was to be reached and kindled 
through their sentiments. It was one of those periods of excite- 
ment, gathering, contagious, universal, which, while they last, exalt 
and clarify the minds of men, giving to the mere words country, 
human rights, democracy, a meaning and a force beyond that of 
sober and logical argument. They were convictions, maintained 
and defended by the supreme logic of passion. That penetrating 
fire ran in and roused those primary instincts that make their lair 
in the dens and caverns of the mind. What is called the great 
popular heart was awakened, that indefinable something which may 
be, according to circumstances, the highest reason or the most 
brutish unreason. But enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed 
over into anything better than cant, — and phrases, when once the 
inspiration that filled them with beneficent power has ebbed away, 
retain only that semblance of meaning which enables them to sup- 
plant reason in hasty minds. Among the lessons taught by the 
French Revolution there is none sadder or more striking than 
this, that you may make everything else out of the passions of men 
except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing 
so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into 
dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain of senti- 
ment over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction ; and 



558 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

perhaps the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a 
tendency of his own supporters which chimed with his own private 
desires while wholly opposed to his convictions of what would be 
wise policy. 

The change which three years have brought about is too remark- 
able to be passed over without comment, too weighty in its lesson 
not to be laid to heart. Never did a President enter upon office 
with less means at his command, outside his own strength of heart 
and steadiness of understanding, for inspiring confidence in the 
people, and so winning it for himself, than Mr, Lincoln. All that 
was known of him was that he was a good stump-speaker, nomi- 
nated for his availability, — that is, because he had no history, — 
and chosen by a party with whose more extreme opinions he was 
not in sympathy. It might well be feared that a man past fifty, 
against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could rake up no 
accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, in decision 
of principle, in strength of will ; that a man who was at best only 
the representative of a party, and who yet did not fairly represent 
even that, would fail of political, much more of popular, support. 
And certainly no one ever entered upon office with so few resources 
of power in the past, and so many materials of weakness in the 
present, as Mr. Lincoln. Even in that half of the Union which 
acknowledged him as President, there was a large, and at that time 
dangerous minority, that hardly admitted his claim to the office, 
and even in the party that elected him there was also a large minor- 
ity that suspected him of being secretly a communicant with the 
church of Laodicea. All that he did was sure to be virulently 
attacked as ultra by one side ; all that he left undone, to be stig- 
matized as proof of lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. 
Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both ; 
he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entanglements 
of unprecedented peril undisturbed by the help or hinderance of 
either, and to win from the crowning dangers of his administra- 
tion, in the confidence of the people, the means of his safety and 
their own. He has contrived to do it, and perhaps none of our 
Presidents since Washington has stood so firm in the confidence of 
the people as he does after three years of stormy administration. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 559 

Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He 
laid down no programme which must compel him to be either in- 
consistent or unwise, no cast-iron theorem to which circumstances 
must be fitted as they rose, or else be useless to his ends. He 
seemed to have chosen Mazarin's motto, Lc to/ips et moi. The 
nwi, to be sure, was not very prominent at first ; but it has grown 
more and more so, till the world is beginning to be persuaded that 
it stands for a character of marked individuality and capacity for 
affairs. Time was his prime-minister, and, we began to think, at 
one period, his general-in-chief also. At first he was so slow that 
he tired out all those who see no evidence of progress but in blow- 
ing up the engine ; then he was so fast, that he took the breath 
away from those who think there is no getting on safely while there 
is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only being who 
has time enough ; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize 
occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. 
Mr. Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we 
have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has always 
waited, as a wise man should, till the right moment brought up all 
his reserves. Semper nocidt diffcre paratis, is a sound axiom, but 
the really efficacious man will also be sure to know when he is not 
ready, and be firm against all persuasion and reproach till he is. 

One would be apt to think, from some of the criticisms made 
on Mr. Lincoln's course by those who mainly agree with him in 
principle, that the chief object of a statesman should be rather to 
proclaim his adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their 
triumph by quietly accomplishing his ends. In our opinion, there 
is no more unsafe politician than a conscientiously rigid doctrinaire, 
nothing more sure to end in disaster than a theoretic scheme of 
policy that admits of no pliability for contingencies. True, there is 
a popular image of an impossible He, in whose plastic hands the 
submissive destinies of mankind become as wax, and to whose com- 
manding necessity the toughest facts yield with the graceful pliancy 
of fiction ; but in real life we commonly find that the men who con- 
trol circumstances, as it is called, are those who have learned to 
allow for the influence of their eddies, and have the nerve to turn 
them to account at the happy instant. Mr. Lincoln's perilous task 



S6o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

has been to carry a rather shaky raft through the rapids, making fast 
the unruHer logs as he could snatch opportunity, and the country is 
to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to run straight 
at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole 
where the main current was, and keep steadily to that. He is still 
in wild water, but we have faith that his skill and sureness of eye 
will bring him out right at last. 

A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel, might be drawn 
between Mr. Lincoln and one of the most striking figures in mod- 
ern history, — Henry IV of France. The career of the latter may 
be more picturesque, as that of a daring captain always is ; but in 
all its vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than that sudden 
change, as by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, from the attorney's office 
in a country town of Illinois to the helm of a great nation in times 
like these. The analogy between the characters and circumstances 
of the two men is in many respects singularly close. Succeeding 
to a rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's chief material depend- 
ence was the Huguenot party, whose doctrines sat upon him with 
a looseness distasteful certainly, if not suspicious, to the more 
fanatical among them. King only in name over the greater part 
of France, and with his capital barred against him, it yet gradually 
became clear to the more far-seeing even of the Catholic party 
that he was the only centre of order and legitimate authority round 
which France could reorganize itself. While preachers who held 
the divine right of kings made the churches of Paris ring with 
declamations in favor of democracy rather than submit to the 
heretic dog of a Bearnois, — much as our soi-disant Democrats 
have lately been preaching the divine right of slavery, and denounc- 
ing the heresies of the Declaration of Independence, — Henry 
bore both parties in hand till he was convinced that only one course 
of action could possibly combine his own interests and those of 
France. Meanwhile the Protestants believed somewhat doubtfully 
that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat doubtfully that 
he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned aside remonstrance, 
advice, and curiosity alike with a jest or a proverb (if a little high, 
he liked them none the worse), joking continually as his manner 
was. We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously compared to 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 561 

Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of the 
deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance ever written ; 
namely, that, while Don Quixote was incomparable in theoretic 
and ideal statesmanship, Sancho, with his stock of proverbs, the 
ready money of human experience, made the best possible prac- 
tical governor. Henry IV was as full of wise saws and modern 
instances as Mr, Lincoln, but beneath all this was the thoughtful, 
practical, humane, and thoroughly earnest man, around whom the 
fragments of France were to gather themselves till she took her 
place again as a planet of the first magnitude in the European 
system. In one respect Mr. Lincoln was more fortunate than 
Henry, However some may think him wanting in zeal, the most 
fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his, nor 
can the most bitter charge him with being influenced by motives 
of personal interest. The leading distinction between the policies 
of the two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the nation ; 
Mr. Lincoln has steadily drawn the nation over to him. One left 
a united France ; the other, we hope and believe, will leave a re- 
united America. We leave our readers to trace the further points 
of difference and resemblance for themselves, merely suggesting a 
general similarity which has often occurred to us. One only point 
of melancholy interest we will allow ourselves to touch upon. That 
Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant we learn from certain 
English tourists, who would consider similar revelations in regard 
to Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in their want of bien- 
scancc. It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his fitness 
for the high place he so worthily occupies ; but he is certainly as 
fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, if we may trust 
contemporary evidence. Mr. Lincoln has also been reproached 
with Americanism by some not unfriendly British critics ; but, 
with all deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse 
for it, or see in it any reason why he should govern Americans 
the less wisely. 

People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we 
are glad that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us 
forever from the Old World, we have had at the head of our affairs 
a man whom America made, as God made Adam, out of the very 



562 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much 
truth, how much magnanimity, and how much statecraft await the 
call of opportunity in simple manhood when it believes in the justice 
of God and the worth of man. Conventionalities are all very well 
in their proper place, but they shrivel at the touch of nature like 
stubble in the fire. The genius that sways a nation by its arbitrary 
will seems less august to us than that which multiplies and reinforces 
itself in the instincts and convictions of an entire people. Autocracy 
may have something in it more melodramatic than this, but falls 
far short of it in human value and interest. 

Experience would have bred in us a rooted distrust of improvised 
statesmanship, even if we did not believe politics to be a science, 
which, if it cannot always command men of special aptitude and 
great powers, at least demands the long and steady application of 
the best powers of such men as it can command to master even its 
first principles. It is curious, that, in a country which boasts of 
its intelligence the theory should be so generally held that the most 
complicated of human contrivances, and one which every day be- 
comes more complicated, can be worked at sight by any man able 
to talk for an hour or two without stopping to think. 

Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of a ready-made 
ruler. But no case could well be less in point ; for, besides that 
he was a man of such fair-mindedness as is always the raw material 
of wisdom, he had in his profession a training precisely the opposite 
of that to which a partisan is subjected. His experience as a lawyer 
compelled him not only to see that there is a principle underlying 
every phenomenon in human affairs, but that there are always two 
sides to every question, both of which must be fully understood in 
order to understand either, and that it is of greater advantage to 
an advocate to appreciate the strength than the weakness of his 
antagonist's position. Nothing is more remarkable than the un- 
erring tact with which, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he went 
straight to the reason of the question ; nor have we ever had a more 
striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, that opposed to a 
man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to 
his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser 
motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of barbarians, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 563 

he should yet have won his case before a jury of the people. 
Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu politician. 
His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as 
of men ; his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest 
acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the 
only durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any ab- 
stract right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable 
at any given moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance 
of mutual concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the 
ideal of a practical statesman, — to aim at the best, and to take 
the next best, if he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, 
but singularly masculine, intelligence taught him* that precedent is 
only another name for embodied experience, and that it counts for 
even more in the guidance of communities of men than in that of 
the individual life. He was not a man who held it good public 
economy to pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. 
Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified by a very well-founded 
distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was his want of self- 
confidence that more than anything else won him the unlimited 
confidence of the people, for they felt that there would be no need 
of retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. The cautious, 
but steady, advance of his policy during the war was like that of a 
Roman army. He left behind him a firm road on which public 
confidence could follow ; he took America with him where he 
went ; what he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts became 
colonies. The very homeliness of his genius was its distinction. 
His kingship was conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never 
was ruler so absolute as he, nor so little conscious of it ; for he 
was the incarnate common-sense of the people. With all that 
tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness touched whoever saw 
him with something of its own pathos, there was no trace of sen- 
timentalism in his speech or action. He seems to have had but 
one rule of conduct, always that of practical and successful poli- 
tics, to let himself be guided by events, when they were sure to 
bring him out where he wished to go, though by what seemed 
to unpractical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at the 
desirable, a longer road. 



564 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship is by degrees 
to accommodate the conduct of communities to ethical laws, and to 
subordinate the conflicting self-interests of the day to higher and 
more permanent concerns. But it is on the understanding, and 
not on the sentiment, of a nation that all safe legislation must be 
based, Voltaire's saying, that " a consideration of petty circum- 
stances is the tomb of great things," may be true of individual men, 
but it certainly is not true of governments. It is by a multitude of 
such considerations, each in itself trifling, but all together weighty, 
that the framers of policy can alone divine what is practicable and 
therefore wise. The imputation of inconsistency is one to which 
every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or 
later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change 
their opinion. The course of a great statesman resembles that of 
navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends 
of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men 
soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost 
imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at 
direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and 
sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human 
commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both. It is 
loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small 
and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them ; it is 
the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which 
knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by 
it, — that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, 
or a conscientious persistency in what is impracticable. For the 
impracticable, however theoretically enticing, is always politically 
unwise, sound statesmanship being the application of that pru- 
dence to the public business which is the safest guide in that of 
private men. 

No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrassing question 
with which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which 
no man in his position, whatever his opinions, could evade ; for, 
though he might withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner 
or later yield to the persistent importunacy of circumstances, which 
thrust the problem upon him at every turn and in every shape. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 565 

It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad, and 
repeated here by people who measure their country rather by what 
is thought of it than by what it is, that our war has not been dis- 
tinctly and avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather 
for the preservation of our national power and greatness, in which 
the emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circum- 
stances and accepted as a necessity. We are very far from denying 
this ; nay, we admit that it is so far true that we were slow to re- 
nounce our constitutional obligations even toward those who had 
absolved us by their own act from the letter of our duty. We are 
speaking of the government which, legally installed for the whole 
country, was bound, so long as it was possible, not to overstep the 
limits of orderly prescription, and could not, without abnegating its 
own very nature, take the lead in making rebellion an excuse for 
revolution. There were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons 
who seemed to think this as simple a thing to do as to lead off a 
Virginia reel. They forgot, what should be forgotten least of all 
in a system like ours, that the administration for the time being 
represents not only the majority which elects it, but the minority 
as well, — a minority in this case powerful, and so little ready for 
emancipation that it was opposed even to war. Mr. Lincoln had 
not been chosen as general agent of an anti-slavery society, but 
President of the United States, to perform certain functions exactly 
defined by law. Whatever were his wishes, it was no less duty than 
policy to mark out for himself a line of action that would not further 
distract the country, by raising before their time questions which 
plainly would soon enough compel attention, and for which every 
day was making the answer more easy. 

Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new Sphinx, or be 
devoured. Though Mr. Lincoln's policy in this critical affair has 
not been such as to satisfy those who demand an heroic treatment 
for even the most trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat 
according to their cloth, unless they can borrow the scissors of 
Atropos, it has been at least not unworthy of the long-headed king 
of Ithaca. Mr. Lincoln had the choice of Bassanio offered him. 
Which of the three caskets held the prize that was to redeem the 
fortunes of the country ? There was the golden one whose showy 



566 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

speciousness might have tempted a vain man ; the silver of com- 
promise, which might have decided the choice of a merely acute 
one ; and the leaden, — dull and homely-looking, as prudence 
always is, — yet with something about it sure to attract the eye of 
practical wisdom. Mr, Lincoln dallied with his decision perhaps 
longer than seemed needful to those on whom its awful responsi- 
bility was not to rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of his 
cautious but sure-footed understanding. The moral of the Sphinx- 
riddle, and it is a deep one, lies in the childish simplicity of the 
solution. Those who fail in guessing it, fail because they are over- 
ingenious, and cast about for an answer that shall suit their own 
notion of the gravity of the occasion and of their own dignity, 
rather than the occasion itself. 

In a matter which must be finally settled by public opinion, and 
in regard to which the ferment of prejudice and passion on both 
sides has not yet subsided to that equilibrium of compromise from 
which alone a sound public opinion can result, it is proper enough 
for the private citizen to press his own convictions with all possible 
force of argument and persuasion ; but the popular magistrate, 
whose judgment must become action, and whose action involves 
the whole country, is bound to wait till the sentiment of the people 
is so far advanced toward his own point of view, that what he does 
shall find support in it, instead of merely confusing it with new 
elements of division. It was not unnatural that men earnestly de- 
voted to the saving of their country, and profoundly convinced 
that slavery was its only real enemy, should demand a decided 
policy round which all patriots might rally, — and this might have 
been the wisest course for an absolute ruler. But in the then un- 
settled state of the public mind, with a large party decrying even 
resistance to the slaveholders' rebellion as not only unwise, but 
even unlawful ; with a majority, perhaps, even of the would-be 
loyal so long accustomed to regard the Constitution as a deed of 
gift conveying to the South their own judgment as to policy and 
instinct as to right, that they were in doubt at first whether their 
loyalty were due to the country or to slavery ; and with a respect- 
able body of honest and influential men who still believed in 
the possibility of conciliation, — Mr. Lincoln judged wisely, that, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 567 

in laying down a policy in deference to one party, he should be 
giving to the other the very fulcrum for which their disloyalty 
had been waiting. 

It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield so 
far to an honest indignation against the brokers of treason in the 
North as to lose sight of the materials for misleading which were 
their stock in trade, and to forget that it is not the falsehood of 
sophistry which is to be feared, but the grain of truth mingled 
with it to make it specious, — that it is not the knavery of the 
leaders so much as the honesty of the followers they may seduce, 
that gives them power for evil. It was especially his duty to do 
nothing which might help the people to forget the true cause of 
the war in fruitless disputes about its inevitable consequences. 

The doctrine of State rights can be so handled by an adroit 
demagogue as easily to confound the distinction between liberty 
and lawlessness in the minds of ignorant persons, accustomed 
always to be influenced by the sound of certain words, rather than 
to reflect upon the principles which give them meaning. For, 
though Secession involves the manifest absurdity of denying to 
a State the right of making war against any foreign power while 
permitting it against the United States ; though it supposes a 
compact of mutual concessions and guaranties among States 
without any arbiter in case of dissension ; though it contradicts 
common-sense in assuming that the men who framed our govern- 
ment did not know what they meant when they substituted Union 
for Confederation ; though it falsifies history, which shows that 
the main opposition to the adoption of the Constitution was based 
on the argument that it did not allow that independence in the 
several States which alone would justify them in seceding; — yet, 
as slavery was universally admitted to be a reserved right, an 
inference could be drawn from any direct attack upon it (though 
only in self-defence) to a natural right of resistance, logical enough 
to satisfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, as the majority of men 
always are, and now too much disturbed by the disorder of the 
times, to consider that the order of events had any legitimate bear- 
ing on the argument. Though Mr. Lincoln was too sagacious to 
give the Northern allies of the Rebels the occasion they desired 



568 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

and even strove to provoke, yet from the beginning of the war 
the most persistent efforts have been made to confuse the pubUc 
mind as to its origin and motives, and to drag the people of the 
loyal States down from the national position they had instinctively 
taken to the old level of party squabbles and antipathies. The 
wholly unprovoked rebellion of an oligarchy proclaiming negro 
slavery the corner-stone of free institutions, and in the first flush 
of over-hasty confidence venturing to parade the logical sequence 
of their leading dogma, "that slavery is right in principle, and 
has nothing to do with difference of complexion," has been repre- 
sented as a legitimate and gallant attempt to maintain the true 
principles of democracy. The rightful endeavor of an established 
government, the least onerous that ever existed, to defend itself 
against a treacherous attack on its very existence, has been cun- 
ningly made to seem the wicked effort of a fanatical clique to 
force its doctrines on an oppressed population. 

Even so long ago as when Mr, Lincoln, not yet convinced of 
the danger and magnitude of the crisis, was endeavoring to per- 
suade himself of Union majorities at the South, and to carry on 
a war that was half peace in the hope of a peace that would have 
been all war, — while he was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave 
Law, under some theory that Secession, however it might absolve 
States from their obligations, could not escheat them of their 
claims under the Constitution, and that slaveholders in rebellion 
had alone among mortals the privilege of having their cake and 
eating it at the same time, — the enemies of free government 
were striving to persuade the people that the war was an Abolition 
crusade. To rebel without reason was proclaimed as one of the 
rights of man, while it was carefully kept out of sight that to sup- 
press rebellion is the first duty of government. All the evils that 
have come upon the country have been attributed to the Aboli- 
tionists, though it is hard to see how any party can become per- 
manently powerful except in one of two ways, — either by the 
greater truth of its principles, or the extravagance of the party 
opposed to it. To fancy the ship of state, riding safe at her con- 
stitutional moorings, suddenly engulfed by a huge kraken of Aboli- 
tionism, rising from unknown depths and grasping it with slimy 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 569 

tentacles, is to look at the natural history of the matter with the 
eyes of Pontoppidan. To believe that the leaders in the Southern 
treason feared any danger from Abolitionism, would be to deny 
them ordinary intelligence, though there can be little doubt that 
they made use of it to stir the passions and excite the fears of 
their deluded accomplices. They rebelled, not because they thought 
slavery weak, but because they believed it strong enough, not to 
overthrow the government, but to get possession of it ; for it be- 
comes daily clearer that they used rebellion only as a means of 
revolution, and if they got revolution, though not in the shape 
they looked for, is the American people to save them from its 
consequences at the cost of its own existence ? The election of 
Mr. Lincoln, which it was clearly in their power to prevent had 
they wished, was the occasion merely, and not the cause, of their 
revolt. Abolitionism, till within a year or two, was the despised 
heresy of a few earnest persons, without political weight enough 
to carry the election of a parish constable ; and their cardinal 
principle was disunion, because they were convinced that within 
the Union the position of slavery was impregnable. In spite of 
the proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes, — that 
is, disproportionately small, — but from adequate causes acting 
under certain required conditions. To contrast the size of the 
oak with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid 
all costs from its slender strong-box, may serve for a child's 
wonder ; but the real miracle lies in that divine league which 
bound all the forces of nature to the service of the tiny germ in 
fulfilling its destiny. Everything has been at work for the past 
ten years in the cause of anti-slavery, but Garrison and Phillips 
have been far less successful propagandists than the slaveholders 
themselves, with the constantly growing arrogance of their pre- 
tensions and encroachments. They have forced the question upon 
the attention of every voter in the Free States, by defiantly putting 
freedom and democracy on the defensive. But, even after the 
Kansas outrages, there was no wide-spread desire on the part of 
the North to commit aggressions, though there was a growing 
determination to resist them. The popular unanimity in favor of 
the war three years ago was but in small measure the result of 



570 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

anti-slavery sentiment, far less of any zeal for abolition. But every 
month of the war, every movement of the allies of slavery in the 
Free States, has been making Abolitionists by the thousand. The 
masses of any people, however intelligent, are very little moved 
by abstract principles of humanity and justice, until those prin- 
ciples are interpreted for them by the stinging commentary of 
some infringement upon their own rights, and then their instincts 
and passions, once aroused, do indeed derive an incalculable rein- 
forcement of impulse and intensity from those higher ideas, those 
sublime traditions, which have no motive political force till they 
are allied with a sense of immediate personal wrong or imminent 
peril. Then at last the stars in their courses begin to fight against 
Sisera. Had any one doubted before that the rights of human 
nature are unitary, that oppression is of one hue the world over, 
no matter what the color of the oppressed, — had any one failed 
to see what the real essence of the contest was, — the efforts of 
the advocates of slavery among ourselves to throw discredit upon 
the fundamental axioms of the Declaration of Independence and the 
radical doctrines of Christianity, could not fail to sharpen his eyes. 
While every day was bringing the people nearer to the con- 
clusion which all thinking men saw to be inevitable from the be- 
ginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shaping of his 
policy to events. In this country, where the rough and ready 
understanding of the people is sure at last to be the controlling 
power, a profound common-sense is the best genius for statesman- 
ship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's measures has been 
justified by the fact that they have always resulted in more firmly 
uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly admirable 
in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of 
familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult at- 
tainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal 
character. There must be something essentially noble in an elec- 
tive ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without 
losing respect, something very manly in one who can break through 
the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the 
reason and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher 
compliment was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 571 

the fireside plainness, with which Mr, Lincoln always addresses 
himself to the reason of the American people. This was, indeed, 
a true democrat, who grounded himself on the assumption that a 
democracy can think. " Come, let us reason together about this 
matter," has been the tone of all his addresses to the people ; and 
accordingly we have never had a chief magistrate who so won 
to himself the love and at the same time the judgment of his 
countrymen. To us, that simple confidence of his in the right- 
mindedness of his fellow-men is very touching, and its success is 
as strong an argument as we have ever seen in favor of the theory 
that men can govern themselves. He never appeals to any vulgar 
sentiment, he never alludes to the humbleness of his origin ; it 
probably never occurred to him, indeed, that there was anything 
higher to start from than manhood ; and he put himself on a level 
with those he addressed, not by going down to them, but only by 
taking it for granted that they had brains and would come up to 
a common ground of reason. In an article lately printed in The 
Natiofi, Mr. Bayard Taylor mentions the striking fact, that in the 
foulest dens of the Five Points he found the portrait of Lincoln. 
The wretched population that makes its hive there threw all its 
votes and more against him, and yet paid this instinctive tribute 
to the sweet humanity of his nature. There ignorance sold its 
vote and took its money, but all that was left of manhood in 
them recognized its saint and martyr. 

Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying, " This is my opinion, 
or my theory," but " This is the conclusion to which, in my judg- 
ment, the time has come, and to which, accordingly, the sooner 
we come the better for us." His policy has been the policy of 
public opinion based on adequate discussion and on a timely recog- 
nition of the influence of passing events in shaping the features 
of events to come. 

One secret of Mr. Lincoln's remarkable success in captivating 
the popular mind is undoubtedly an unconsciousness of self which 
enables him, though under the necessity of constantly using the 
capital /, to do it without any suggestion of egotism. There is no 
single vowel which men's mouths can pronounce with such differ- 
ence of effect. That which one shall hide away, as it were, behind 



572 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

the substance of his discourse, or, if he bring it to the front, 
shall use merely to give an agreeable accent of individuality to 
what he says, another shall make an offensive challenge to the self- 
satisfaction of all his hearers, and an unwarranted intrusion upon 
each man's sense of personal importance, irritating every pore 
of his vanity, like a dry northeast wind, to a goose-flesh of oppo- 
sition and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied Ouintilian ; 
but he has, in the earnest simplicity and unaffected American- 
ism of his own character, one art of oratory worth all the rest. 
He forgets himself so entirely in his object as to give his / the 
sympathetic and persuasive effect of We with the great body of 
his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all the rough- 
edged process of his thought as it goes along, yet arriving at his 
conclusions with an honest kind of every-day logic, he is so eminently 
our representative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the 
people were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dignity of 
his thought owes nothing to any ceremonial garb of words, but to 
the manly movement that comes of settled purpose and an energy 
of reason that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been 
nothing of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades striving to underbid him 
in demagogism, to be found in the public utterances of Mr. Lin- 
coln. He has always addressed the intelligence of men, never 
their prejudice, their passion, or their ignorance. 



On the day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who 
according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctri- 
naires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element 
of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and 
this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the 
hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor was this all, 
for it appeared that he had drawn the great majority, not only of 
his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, to his side. So strong 
and so persuasive is honest manliness without a single quality of 
romance or unreal sentiment to help it ! A civilian during times 
of the most captivating military achievement, awkward, with no 
skill in the lower technicalities of manners, he left behind him 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 573 

a fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace 
higher than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanhness 
deeper than mere breeding. Never before that startled April morn- 
ing did such multitudes of men shed tears for the death of one 
they had never seen, as if with him a friendly presence had been 
taken away from their lives, leaving them colder and darker. Never 
was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent look of sympathy 
which strangers exchanged when they met on that day. Their 
common manhood had lost a kinsman. 



WALT WHITMAN 

[Born at West Hills, Long Island, New York, May 31, 181 9; died at 
Camden, New Jersey, March 26, 1892] 

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear ; 

Those of mechanics, each one singing his, as it should be, blithe 
and strong ; 

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam ; 

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves 
off work ; 

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck- 
hand singing on the steamboat deck ; 

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing 
as he stands ; 

The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn- 
ing, or at noon intermission or at sundown ; 

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, 
or of the girl sewing or washing. 

Each singing what belongs to her and to none else ; 

The day what belongs to the day — at night, the party of young 
fellows, robust, friendly. 

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. 



574 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

BY THE BIVOUAC'S FITFUL FLAME 

By the bivouac's fitful flame, 

A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow ; — 

but first I note, 
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline, 
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire — the silence ; 
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving ; 
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily 

watching me ;) 
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts, 
Of life and death — of home and the past and loved, and of those 

that are far away ; 
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, 
By the bivouac's fitful flame. 



O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won ; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring : 
But O heart ! heart ! heart ! 
O the bleeding drops of red. 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding ; 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; 
Here Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck, 
You 've fallen cold and dead. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 575 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; 
From fearful trip the victor ship, comes in with object won ; 
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells ! 
But I, with mournful tread, 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 



A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAY-BREAK GREY AND DIM 

A sight in camp in the day-break grey and dim, 

As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, 

As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital 

tent. 
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended 

lying. 
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket, 
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all. 

Curious, I halt and silent stand ; 

Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first, 

just lift the blanket : 
Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey' d 

hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes ,'' 
Who are you, my dear comrade ? 
Then to the second I step — and who are you, my child and 

darling ? 
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming ? 

Then to the third — a face nor child, nor old, very calm, as of 

beautiful yellow-white ivory ; 
Young man, I think I know you — I think this face of yours is 

the face of the Christ himself ; 
Dead and divine, and brother of all, and here again he lies. 



576 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER 

A noiseless, patient spider, 

I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated ; 

Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, 

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself ; 

Ever unreeling them — ever tirelessly speeding them. 

And you, O my Soul, where you stand. 

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space. 

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, — seeking the spheres, 

to connect them ; 
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd — till the ductile anchor 

hold ; 
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul. 



HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY 



Hush'd be the camps to-day ; 

And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worh weapons ; 
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate, 
Our dear commander's death. 

No more for him life's stormy conflicts ; 

Nor victory, nor defeat — no more time's dark events, 

Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. 



But sing, poet, in our name ; 

Sing of the love we bore him — because you, dweller in camps, 
know it truly. 

As they invault the coflfin there, 

Sing — as they close the doors of earth upon him — one verse, 

For the heavy hearts of soldiers. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 577 

TO THE MAN-OF-WAR-BIRD 

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, 
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, 
(Burst the wild storm ? above it thou ascended 'st. 
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee) 
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, 
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, 
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.) 

Far, far at sea. 

After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks. 

With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, 

The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, 

The limpid spread of air cerulean. 

Thou also re-appearest. 

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings) 

To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, 

Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, 

Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms 

gyrating. 
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, 
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, 
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul. 
What joys ! what joys were thine ! 



COME UP FROM THE FIELDS, FATHER 

Come up from the fields, father, here 's a letter from our Pete ; 
And come to the front door, mother — here 's a letter from thy 
dear son. 

Lo, 't is autumn, 

Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, 
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the 
moderate wind ; 



578 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the 

treUised vines ; 
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines ? 
Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing ?) 
Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and 

with wondrous clouds. 
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well. 

Down in the fields all prospers well ; 

But now from the fields come, father, come at the daughter's call ; 

And come to the entry, mother, to the front door come right away. 

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling ; 
She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap. 

Open the envelope quickly ; 

O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd ; 

O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother's soul ! 

All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the 

main words only ; 
Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, 

taken to hospital, 
At present lozv,but zvill soon be better. 

Ah, now, the single figure to me. 

Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms, 

Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint. 

By the jamb of a door leans. 

Grieve not so, dear mother (the just-grown daughter speaks 

through her sobs ; 
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay 'd;) 
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete zvill soon be better. 

'Alas, poor boy, he will never be better (nor may-be needs to be 

better, that brave and simple soul ;) 
While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already ; 
The only son is dead. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 579 

But the mother needs to be better ; 

She with thin form presently dressed in black ; 

By day her meals untouch'd, then at night fitfully sleeping, often 

waking, 
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, 
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and 

withdraw. 
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son. 



BAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL 

Barest thou now, O Soul, 

Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region, 

Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow ? 

No map there, nor guide. 

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand. 

Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. 

I know it not, O Soul ! 

Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us ; 

All waits undreamed of in that region, that inaccessible land. 

Till, when the ties loosen, 

All but the ties eternal. Time and Space, 

Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bound us. 

Then we burst forth, we float. 
In Time and Space, O Soul ! prepared for them, 
Equal, equipped at last, (O joy ! O fruit of all !) them to fulfil, 
O Soul ! 



58o READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOOR-YARD BLOOM'D 

SELECTIONS 

I 

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom 'd, 

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, 

I mourn'd — and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

O ever-returning spring ! trinity sure to me you bring ; 
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, 
And thought of him I love. 



O powerful, western, fallen star ! 

O shades of night ! O moody, tearful night ! 

O great star disappear'd ! O the black murk that hides the star ! 

O cruel hands that hold me powerless ! O helpless soul of me ! 

O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul ! 

Ill 

In the door-yard fronting an old farmhouse, near the white- 

wash'd palings, 
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of 

rich green. 
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume 

strong I love. 
With every leaf a miracle . . . and from this bush in the door-yard. 
With delicate-color'd blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich 

green, 
A sprig, with its flower, I break. 

IV 

In the swamp, in secluded recesses, 

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. 

Solitary, the thrush. 

The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, 

Sings by himself a song. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 581 

Song of the bleeding throat ! 

Death's outlet song of life — (for well, dear brother, I know, 

If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would'st surely die.) 



Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities. 

Amid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep'd 

from the ground, spotting the gray debris ;) 
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes — passing the 

endless grass ; 
Passing the yellow-speared wheat, every grain from its shroud in 

the dark-brown fields uprising ; 
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards ; 
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, 
Night and day journeys a coffin. 



Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, 

Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land. 

With the pomp of the in-looped flags, with the cities draped in 

black. 
With the show of the States themselves as of crape- veil'd women 

standing. 
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night. 
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the 

unbared heads, 
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces. 
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising 

strong and solemn ; 
With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the 

coffin, 
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs — where amid 

these you journey, 
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang. 
Here, coffin that slowly passes, 
I give you my sprig of lilac. 



582 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Sing on, there in the swamp ! 

singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, 

1 hear, I come presently, I understand you, 

But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detained me ; 
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me. 



how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved ? 
And how shall I deck my soul for the large sweet soul that has gone ? 
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love ? 

Sea-winds blown from east and west, 

Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till 

there on the prairies meeting. 
These, and with these, and the breath of my chant, 

1 perfume the grave of him I love. 



Sing on ! sing on, you gray-brown bird ! 

Sing from the swamps, the recesses — pour your chant from the 

bushes ; 
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. 

Sing on, dearest brother — warble your reedy song ; 
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. 

O liquid, and free, and tender ! 

O wild and loose to my soul ! O wondrous singer ! 

You only I hear . . . yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart ;) 

Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me. 



To the tally of my soul, 

Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird 

With pure, deliberate notes, spreading, filling the night. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 583 

Loud in the pines and cedars dim, 

Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume ; 

And I with my comrades there in the night. 

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, 
As to long panoramas of visions. 



I saw askant the armies ; 

I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, 

Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles, 

I saw them, 
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and 

bloody ; 
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence,) 
And the staffs all splintered and broken. 

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them. 

And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them ; 

I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war. 

But I saw they were not as was thought, 

They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not ; 

The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd. 

And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer'd, 

And the armies that remained suffer'd. 



Passing the visions, passing the night ; 

Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands ; 

Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my 

soul. 
Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song, 
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding 

the night. 
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again 

bursting with joy. 



584 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Covering the earth and filhng the spread of the heaven, 

As that powerful psahn in the night I heard from recesses, 

Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, 

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring. 

I cease from my song for thee, 

From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing 

with thee, 
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. 



Yet each I keep and all, retrievements out of the night ; 

The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, 

And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul, 

With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full 

of woe. 
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor ; 
With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird. 
Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I 

keep — for the dead I loved so well ; 
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands . , . and 

this for his dear sake ; 
Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul. 
There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim. 



SIDNEY LANIER. 

[Born at Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842; died at Lynn, North Carolina, 

September 7, 1881] 

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE 

Out of the hills of Habersham, 

Down the valleys of Hall, 
I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
Split at the rock and together again, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 585 

Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
And flee from folly on every side 
With a lover's pain to attain the plain 

Far from the hills of Habersham, 

Far from the valleys of Hall. 

All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 
The rushes cried Abide, abide. 
The wilful waterweeds held me thrall. 
The laving laurel turned my tide. 
The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, 
The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide, 

Here in the hills of Habersham, 

Here in the valleys of Hall. 

High o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
The hickory told me manifold 
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign. 
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 

Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, 

These glades in the valleys of Hall. 

And oft in the hills of Habersham, 

And oft in the valleys of Hall, 
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone 
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl. 
And many a luminous jewel lone 
— Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, 
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — 
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 

In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 

In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 



586 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 

And oh, not the valleys of Hall 
Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. 
Downward the voices of Duty call — 
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main. 
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn. 
And the lordly main from beyond the plain 

Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Calls through the valleys of Hall. 

A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER 

Into the woods my Master went. 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 

Forspent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Him ; 

The little gray leaves were kind to Him ; 

The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 

When into the woods He came. 

Out of the woods my Master went, 

And He was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came. 

Content with death and shame. 

When Death and Shame would woo Him last. 

From under the trees they drew Him last : 

'T was on a tree they slew Him — last ; 

When out of the woods He came. 

THE MARSHES OF GLYNN 

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven 
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven 
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, — 

Emerald twilights, — 

Virginal shy lights, 
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 587 

When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades 

Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, 

Of the heavenly woods and glades, 

That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within 

The wide sea-marshes of Glynn ; — 

Beautiful glooms,- soft dusks in the noon-day fire, — 

Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire. 

Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, — 

Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves. 

Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood, 

Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good ; — 

O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine. 

While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shine 

Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine ; 

But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest. 

And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, 

And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem 

Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, — 

Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak, 

And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of 

the stroke 
Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, 
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know. 
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within. 
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes 

of Glynn 
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore 
When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness 

sore, 
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain 
Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, — 
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face 
The vast sweet visage of space. 
To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, 
Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn. 
For a mete and a mark 
To the forest-dark : — 



588 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

So: 
Affable live-oak, leaning low, — 
Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand, 
(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land !) 
Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand 
On the firm-packed sand. 

Free 
By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. 
Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band 
Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of 

the land. 
Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines 

linger and curl 
As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm 

sweet limbs of a girl. 
Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, 
Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. 
And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands 

high ? 
The world lies east : how ample, the marsh and the sea and the 

sky ! 
A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high broad in the blade, 
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, 
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain. 
To the terminal blue of the main. 

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea .-' 
Somehow my soul seems suddenly free 
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin. 
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of 
Glynn. 

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and 

free 
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea ! 
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun. 
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 589 

God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain 
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain. 

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, 

Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God : 

I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies 

In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the 

skies : 
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod 
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God : 
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within 
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn. 

And the sea lends large, as the marsh : lo, out of his plenty 

the sea 
Pours fast : full soon the time of the flood-tide must be : 
Look how the grace of the sea doth go 
About and about through the intricate channels that flow 
Here and there. 
Everywhere, 
Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying 

lanes, 
And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, 
That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow 
In the rose-and-silver evening glow. 

Farewell, my lord Sun ! 
The creeks overflow : a thousand rivulets run 
'Twixt the roots of the sod ; the blades of the marsh-grass stir ; 
Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr ; 
Passeth, and all is still ; and the currents cease to run ; 
And the sea and the marsh are one. 

How still the plains of the waters be ! 
The tide is in his ecstasy. 
The tide is at his highest height : 
And it is night. 



590 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep 

Roll in on the souls of men, 

But who will reveal to our waking ken 

The forms that swim and the shapes that creep 

Under the waters of sleep ? 
And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide 

comes in 
On the length and the breadth of the marvelous marshes of Glynn. 



THE LATER NATIONAL PERIOD 
MINOR WRITERS 

BAYARD TAYLOR 

[Born at Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, January ii, 1825; 
died at Berlin, December 19, 1878] 

BEDOUIN SONG 

From the Desert I come to thee 

On a stallion shod with fire ; 
And the winds are left behind 

In the speed of my desire. 
Under thy window I stand, 

And the midnight hears my cry : 
I love thee, I love but thee, 
With a love that shall not die 
Till the sun groivs cold, 
And the stars are old, 
And the leaves of tJie Jiidgmejit 
Book unfold ! 

Look from thy window and see 

My passion and my pain ; 
I lie on the sands below. 

And I faint in thy disdain. 
Let the night-winds touch thy brow 

With the heat of my burning sigh, 
And melt thee to hear the vow 
Of a love that shall not die 
Till the Sim grows cold, 
And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment 
Book unfold I 
591 



592 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

My steps are nightly driven, 
By the feyer in my breast, 
To hear from thy lattice breathed 

The word that shall give me rest. 
Open the door of thy heart, 

And open thy chamber door, 
And my kisses shall teach thy lips 
The love that shall fade no more 
Till the siin grows cold. 
And the stars are old. 
And the leaves of the Judgment 
Book unfold ! 

THE SONG OF THE CAMP 

" Give us a song ! " the soldiers cried, 
The outer trenches guarding, 

When the heated guns of the camps allied 
Grew weary of bombarding. 

The dark Redan, in silent scoff. 
Lay, grim and threatening, under ; 

And the tawny mound of the Malakoff 
No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause, A guardsman said 
" We storm the forts to-morrow ; 

Sing while we may, another day 
Will bring enough of sorrow." 

They lay along the battery's side. 

Below the smoking cannon : 
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love, and not of fame ; 

Forgot was Britain's glory : 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang " Annie Laurie." 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 593 

Voice after voice caught up the song, 

Until its tender passion 
Rose Hke an anthem, rich and strong, — 

Their battle-eve confession. 

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, 

But, as the song grew louder. 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stains of powder. 

Beyond the darkening: ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers. 
While the Crimean valleys learned 

How English love remembers. 

And once again a fire of hell 

Rained on the Russian quarters, 
With scream of shot, and burst of shell, 

And bellowing of the mortars ! 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 

For a singer, dumb and gory ; 
And English Mary mourns for him 

Who sang of "Annie Laurie." 

Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest 

Your truth and valor wearing : 
The bravest are the tenderest, — 

The loving are the daring. 

AMERICA 
From the National Ode, July 4, 1876 

Foreseen in the vision of sages, 

Foretold when martyrs bled, 
She was born of the longing of ages, 

By the truth of the noble dead 

And the faith of the living fed ! 



594 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

No blood in her lightest veins 
Frets at remembered chains, 
Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head. 
In her form and features still 
The unblenching Puritan will, 
Cavalier honor. Huguenot grace, 
The Quaker truth and sweetness, 
And the strength of the danger-girdled race 
Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness. 
From the homes of all, where her being began, 
She took what she gave to Man ; 
Justice, that knew no station, 
Belief, as soul decreed, 
Free air for aspiration, 
Free force for independent deed ! 
She takes, but to give again, 
As the sea returns the rivers in rain ; 
And gathers the chosen of her seed 
From the hunted of every crown and creed. 
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine ; 
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine ; 
Her France pursues some stream divine ; 
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine ; 
Her Italy waits by the western brine ; 
And, broad-based under all. 
Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood. 

As rich in fortitude 
As e'er went worldward from the island-wall ! 

Fused in her candid light, 
To one strong race all races here unite ; 
Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen 
Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan, 

'T was glory, once, to be a Roman : 
She makes it glory, now, to be a man ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 595 



HENRY TIMROD 

[Born at Charleston, South Carolina, December 8, 1829; died at Columbia, 
South Carolina, October 6, 1867] 

SPRING 

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air 

Which dwells with all things fair, 
Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain, 

Is with us once again. 

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns 

Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
Into a royal court with green festoons 

The banks of dark lagoons. 

In the deep heart of every forest tree 

The blood is all aglee. 
And there 's a look about the leafless bowers 

As if they dreamed of flowers. 

Yet still on every side we trace the hand 

Of Winter in the land, 
Save where the maple reddens on the lawn. 

Flushed by the season's dawn. 

Or where, like those strange semblances we find 

That age to childhood bind, 
The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn. 

The brown of Autumn corn. 



As yet the turf is dark, although you know 

That not a span below, 
A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, 

And soon will burst their tomb. 



596 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Already, here and there, on frailest stems 

Appear some azure gems. 
Small as might deck, upon a gala day, 

The forehead of a fay. 

In gardens you may note amid the dearth 

The crocus breaking earth ; 
And near the snowdrop's tender white and green, 

The violet in its screen. 

But many gleams and shadows need must pass 

Along the budding grass, 
And weeks go by, before the enamored South 

Shall kiss the rose's mouth. 

Still there 's a sense of blossoms yet unborn 

In the sweet airs of morn ; 
One almost looks to see the very street 

Grow purple at his feet. 

At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, 

And brings, you know not why, 
A feeling as when eager crowds await 

Before a palace gate 

Some wondrous pageant ; and you scarce would start, 

If from a beech's heart, 
A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, 

" Behold me ! I am May ! " 

Ah ! who would couple thoughts of war and crime 

With such a blessed time ! 
Who in the west wind's aromatic breath 

Could hear the call of Death ! 

Yet not more surely shall the Spring awake 

The voice of wood and brake, 
Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms, 

A million men to arms. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 597 

There shall be deeper hues upon her plains 

Than all her sunlit rains, 
And every gladdening influence around, 

Can summon from the ground. 

Oh ! standing on this desecrated mold, 

Methinks that I behold, 
Lifting her bloody daisies up to God, 

Spring kneeling on the sod, 

And calling, with the voice of all her rills, 

Upon the ancient hills 
To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves 

Who turn her meads to graves. 



AT MAGNOLIA CEMETERY 

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves. 
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause ; 

Though yet no marble column craves 
The pilgrim here to pause. 

In seed of laurel in the earth 

The blossom of your fame is blown, 

And somewhere, waiting for its birth. 
The shaft is in the stone ! 

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years 

Which keep in trust your storied tombs, 

Behold ! your sisters bring their tears, 
And these memorial blooms. 

Small tributes ! but your shades will smile 
More proudly on these wreaths to-day, 

Than when some cannon-molded pile 
Shall overlook this bay. 



59^ READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies ! 

There is no hoher spot of ground 
Than where defeated valor lies, 

By mourning beauty crowned. 



PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 

[Born at Charleston, South Carolina, January i, 1831 ; died July 6, 1886] 
ASPECTS OF THE PINES 

Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky 
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs, 

Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully, 
As if from realms of mystical despairs. 

Tall, somber, grim, they stand with dusky gleams 
Brightening to gold within the woodland's core. 

Beneath the gracious noontide's tranquil beams — 
But the weird winds of morning sigh no more. 

A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable. 

Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease, 
And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell 

Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace. 

Last, sunset comes — the solemn joy and might 

Borne from the west when cloudless day declines — 

Low, fiutelike breezes sweep the waves of light. 
And lifting dark green tresses of the pines, 

Till every lock is luminous — gently float. 
Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar 

To faint when twilight on her virginal throat 
Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 599 

A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET 

A little while (my life is almost set !) 

I fain would pause along the downward way, 
Musing an hour in this sad sunset ray, 

While, Sweet ! our eyes with tender tears are wet : 

A little hour I fain would linger yet. 

A little while I fain would linger yet. 

All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire ; 
Though fervid youth be dead, with youth's desire, 

And hope has faded to a vague regret, 

A little while I fain would linger yet. 

A little while I fain would linger here : 

Behold ! who knows what strange, mysterious bars 
'Twixt souls that love may rise in other stars ? 

Nor can love deem the face of death is fair : 

A little while I still would linger here. 

A little while I yearn to hold thee fast, 

Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart ; 

(O pitying Christ ! those woeful words, " We part 1 ") 

So ere the darkness fall, the light be past, 

A little while I fain would hold thee fast. 

A little while, when light and twilight meet, — 
Behind, our broken years ; before, the deep 
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep, — 

A little while I still would clasp thee. Sweet, 

A little while, when night and twilight meet. 

A little while I fain would linger here ; 

Behold ! who knows what soul-dividing bars 
Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars .-' 

Nor can love deem the face of death is fair : 

A little while I still would linger here. 



6oo READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

A STORM IN THE DISTANCE 

I see the cloud-born squadrons of the gale, 

Their lines of rain like glittering spears deprest, 

While all the affrighted land grows darkly pale 
In flashing charge on earth's half-shielded breast. 

Sounds like the rush of trampling columns float 
From that fierce conflict ; volleyed thunders peal, 

Blent with the maddened wind's wild bugle-note ; 
The lightnings flash, the solid woodlands reel ! 

Ha ! many a foliaged guardian of the height, 
Majestic pine or chestnut, riven and bare, 

Falls in the rage of that aerial fight. 

Led by the Prince of all the Powers of air ! 

Vast boughs like shattered banners hurtling fly 
Down the thick tumult : while, like emerald snow, 

Millions of orphaned leaves make wild the sky. 
Or drift in shuddering helplessness below. 

Still, still, the levelled lances of the rain 

At earth's half-shielded breast take glittering aim ; 

All space is rife with fury, racked with pain, 

Earth bathed in vapor, and heaven rent by flame ! 

At last the cloud-battalions through long rifts 
Of luminous mists retire : — the strife is done, 

And earth once more her wounded beauty lifts, 
To meet the healing kisses of the sun. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 6oi 



FRANCIS BRET HARTE 

[Born at Albany, New York, August 25, 1839; died at Camberley, 
England, May 5, 1902] 

GRIZZLY 

Coward, — of heroic size, 
In whose lazy muscles lies 
Strength we fear and yet despise ; 
Savage, — whose relentless tusks 
Are content with acorn husks ; 
Robber, — whose exploits ne'er soared 
O'er the bee's or squirrel's hoard ; 
Whiskered chin, and feeble nose, 
Claws of steel on baby toes, — 
Here, in solitude and shade, 
Shambling, shuffling plantigrade. 
Be thy courses undismayed ! 

Here, where Nature makes thy bed, 
Let thy rude, half-human tread 

Point to hidden Indian springs, 
Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses, 

Hovered o'er by timid wings. 
Where the wood-duck lightly passes. 
Where the wild bee holds her sweets. 
Epicurean retreats. 
Fit for thee, and better than 
Fearful spoils of dangerous man. 
In thy fat-jowled deviltry 
Friar Tuck shall live in thee ; 
Thou mayest levy tithe and dole ; 

Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer. 
From the pilgrim taking toll ; 

Match thy cunning with his fear ; 
Eat, and drink, and have thy fill ; 
Yet remain an outlaw still ! 



6o2 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 

[Born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 1 1, 1836; died at Boston, 

March 19, 1907] 

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN 

W/icn the Sidtan ShaJi-Zaman 
Goes to the city Ispahan, 
Even before he gets so far 
As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, 
At the last of the thirty palace-gates, 
The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, 
Orders a feast in his favorite room — 
Glittering squares of colored ice, 
Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice, 
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, 
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces. 
Limes, and citrons, and apricots. 
And wines that are known to Eastern princes ; 
And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots 
Of spiced meats and costliest fish 
And all that curious palate could wish, 
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors ; 
Scattered over mosaic floors 
Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, 
And a musical fountain throws its jets 
Of a hundred colors into the air. 
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, 
And stains with the henna-plant the tips 
Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips 
Till they bloom again ; but alas, that rose 
Not for the Sultan buds and blows. 
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
When he goes to the city IspaJian. 

Then at a wave of her sunny hand 
The dancing-girls of Samarcand 
Glide in like shapes from fairy-land. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 603 

Making a sudden mist in air 
Of fleecy veils and floating hair 
And white arms Hfted. Orient blood 
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes. 
And there, in this Eastern Paradise, 
Filled with the breath of sandal-wood, 
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, 
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan. 
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ; 
And her Arab lover sits with her. 
TJiat 's when the Sidtan Shah-Zatnan 
Goes to the city Ispahan. 

Now, when I see an extra light. 
Flaming, flickering on the night 
From my neighbor's casement opposite, 
I know as well as I know to pray, 
I know as well as tongue can say, 
That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman 
Has gone to the city Ispahan. 



CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 

[Born at Plainfield, Massachusetts, September 12, 1829; died in Hartford, 
Connecticut, October 20, 1900] 

CAMPING OUT 

It seems to be agreed that civilization is kept up only by a con- 
stant effort. Nature claims its own speedily when the effort is 
relaxed. If you clear a patch of fertile ground in the forest, uproot 
the stumps and plant it, year after year, in potatoes and maize, you 
say you have subdued it. But if you leave it for a season or two, 
a kind of barbarism seems to steal out upon it from the circling 
woods ; coarse grass and brambles cover it ; bushes spring up in 
a wild tangle ; the raspberry and the blackberry flower and fruit, 
and the humorous bear feeds upon them. The last state of the 
ground is worse than the first. 



604 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Perhaps the cleared spot is called Ephesus. There is a splendid 
city on the plain ; there are temples and theatres on the hills ; the 
commerce of the world seeks its port ; the luxury of the Orient 
flows through its marble streets. You are there one day when the 
sea has receded : the plain is a pestilent marsh ; the temples, the 
theatres, the lofty gates, have sunken and crumbled, and the wild- 
brier runs over them ; and, as you grow pensive in the most desolate 
place in the world, a bandit lounges out of a tomb, and offers to 
relieve you of all that which creates artificial distinctions in society. 
The higher the civilization has risen, the more abject is the desola- 
tion of barbarism that ensues. The most melancholy spot in the 
Adirondacks is not a tamarack-swamp, where the traveller wades 
in moss and mire, and the atmosphere is composed of equal active 
parts of black-flies, mosquitoes, and midges. It is the village of the 
Adirondack Iron- Works, where the streets of gaunt houses are 
falling to pieces, tenantless ; the factory wheels have stopped ; the 
furnaces are in ruins ; the iron and wooden machinery is strewn 
about in helpless detachment ; and heaps of charcoal, ore, and slag 
proclaim an arrested industry. Beside this deserted village, even 
Calamity Pond, shallow, sedgy, with its ragged shores of stunted 
firs, and its melancholy shaft that marks the spot where the pro- 
prietor of the iron-works accidentally shot himself, is cheerful. 

The instinct of barbarism that leads people periodically to throw 
away the habits of civilization, and seek the freedom and discomfort 
of the woods, is explicable enough ; but it is not so easy to under- 
stand why this passion should be strongest in those who are most 
refined, and most trained in intellectual and social fastidiousness. 
Philistinism and shoddy do not like the woods, unless it becomes 
fashionable to do so ; and then, as speedily as possible they intro- 
duce their artificial luxuries, and reduce the life in the wilderness 
to the vulgarity of a well-fed picnic. It is they who have strewn 
the Adirondacks with paper collars and tin cans. The real enjoy- 
ment of camping and tramping in the woods lies in a return to 
primitive conditions of lodging, dress, and food, in as total an escape 
as may be from the requirements of civilization. And it remains 
to be explained why this is enjoyed most by those who are most 
highly civilized. It is wonderful to see how easily the restraints of 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 605 

society fall off. Of course it is not true that courtesy depends upon 
clothes with the best people ; but, with others, behavior hangs 
almost entirely upon dress. Many good habits are easily got rid of 
in the woods. Doubt sometimes seems to be felt whether Sunday 
is a legal holiday there. It becomes a question of casuistry with a 
clergyman whether he may shoot at a mark on Sunday, if none of 
his congregation are present. He intends no harm : he only grati- 
fies a curiosity to see if he can hit the mark. Where shall he draw 
the line .'' Doubtless he might throw a stone at a chipmunk or shout 
at a loon. Might he fire at a mark with an air-gun that makes 
no noise ? He will not fish or hunt on Sunday (although he is no 
more likely to catch anything that day than on any other) ; but may 
he eat trout that the guide has caught on Sunday, if the guide 
swears he caught them Saturday night .-* Is there such a thing as 
a vacation in religion ? How much of our virtue do we owe to 
inherited habits ? 

I am not at all sure whether this desire to camp outside of 
civilization is creditable to human nature, or otherwise. We hear 
sometimes that the Turk has been merely camping for four centu- 
ries in Europe. I suspect that many of us are, after all, really 
camping temporarily in civilized conditions ; and that going into 
the wilderness is an escape, longed for, into our natural and pre- 
ferred state. Consider what this "camping out" is, that is con- 
fessedly so agreeable to people most delicately reared. I have 
no desire to exaggerate its delights. 

The Adirondack wilderness is essentially unbroken. A few bad 
roads that penetrate it, a few jolting wagons that traverse them, a 
few barn-like boarding-houses on the edge of the forest, where the 
boarders are soothed by patent coffee, and stimulated to unnatural 
gayety by Japan tea, and experimented on by unique cookery, do 
little to destroy the savage fascination of the region. In half an 
hour, at any point, one can put himself into solitude and every 
desirable discomfort. The party that covets the experience of the 
camp comes down to primitive conditions of dress and equipment. 
There are guides and porters to carry the blankets for beds, the 
raw provisions, and the camp equipage ; and the motley party of 
the temporarily decivilized files into the woods, and begins, perhaps 



6o6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

by a road, perhaps on a trail, its exhilarating and weary march. 
The exhilaration arises partly from the casting aside of restraint, 
partly from the adventure of exploration ; and the weariness, from 
the interminable toil of bad walking, a heavy pack, and the grim 
monotony of trees and bushes, that shut out all prospect, except 
an occasional glimpse of the sky. Mountains are painfully climbed, 
streams forded, lonesome lakes paddled over, long and muddy 
" carries " traversed. Fancy this party the victim of political exile, 
banished by the law, and a more sorrowful march could not be 
imagined ; but the voluntary hardship becomes pleasure, and it is 
undeniable that the spirits of the party rise as the difficulties increase. 
For this straggling and stumbling band the world is young again : 
it has come to the beginning of things ; it has cut loose from tra- 
dition, and is free to make a home anywhere : the movement has 
all the promise of a revolution. All this virginal freshness invites 
the primitive instincts of play and disorder. The free range of the 
forests suggests endless possibilities of exploration and possession. 
Perhaps we are treading where man since the creation never trod 
before ; perhaps the waters of this bubbling spring, which we deepen 
by scraping out the decayed leaves and the black earth, have never 
been tasted before, except by the wild denizens of these woods. 
We cross the trails of lurking animals, — paths that heighten our 
sense of seclusion from the world. The hammering of the infre- 
quent woodpecker, the call of the lonely bird, the drumming of the 
solitary partridge, — all these sounds do but emphasize the lone- 
someness of nature. The roar of the mountain brook, dashing 
over its bed of pebbles, rising out of the ravine, and spreading, as 
it were, a mist of sound through all the forest (continuous beating 
waves that have the rhythm of eternity in them), and the fitful 
movement of the air-tides through the balsams and firs and the 
giant pines, — how these grand symphonies shut out the little ex- 
asperations of our vexed life ! It seems easy to begin life over 
again on the simplest terms. Probably it is not so much the desire 
of the congregation to escape from the preacher, or of the preacher 
to escape from himself, that drives sophisticated people into the 
wilderness, as it is the unconquered craving for primitive simplicity, 
the revolt against the everlasting dress-parade of our civilization. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 607 

From this monstrous pomposity even the artificial rusticity of a 
Petit Trianon is a rehef. It was only human nature that the jaded 
Frenchman of the regency should run away to the New World, 
and live in a forest-hut with an Indian squaw ; although he found 
little satisfaction in his act of heroism, unless it was talked about 
at Versailles. 

When our trampers come, late in the afternoon, to the bank of 
a lovely lake where they purpose to enter the primitive life, every- 
thing is waiting for them in virgin expectation. There is a little 
promontory jutting into the lake, and sloping down to a sandy 
beach, on which the waters idly lapse, and shoals of red-fins and 
shiners come to greet the stranger ; the forest is untouched by the 
axe ; the tender green sweeps the water's edge ; ranks of slender 
firs are marshalled by the shore ; clumps of white-birch stems shine 
in satin purity among the evergreens ; the boles of giant spruces, 
maples, and oaks, lifting high their crowns of foliage, stretch away 
in endless galleries and arcades ; through the shifting leaves the 
sunshine falls upon the brown earth ; overhead are fragments of 
blue sky ; under the boughs and in chance openings appear the 
bluer lake and the outline of the gracious mountains. The dis- 
coverers of this paradise, which they have entered to destroy, note 
the babbling of the brook that flows close at hand ; they hear the 
splash of the leaping fish ; they listen to the sweet, metallic song 
of the evening thrush, and the chatter of the red squirrel,, who 
angrily challenges their right to be there. But the moment of 
sentiment passes. This party has come here to eat and to sleep, 
and not to encourage Nature in her poetic attitudinizing. 

The spot for a shanty is selected. This side shall be its open- 
ing, towards the lake ; and in front of it the fire, so that the smoke 
shall drift into the hut, and discourage the mosquitoes ; yonder 
shall be the cook's fire and the path to the spring. The whole 
colony bestir themselves in the foundation of a new home, — an 
enterprise that has all the fascination, and none of the danger, of a 
veritable new settlement in the wilderness. The axes of the guides 
resound in the echoing spaces ; great trunks fall with a crash ; 
vistas are opened towards the lake and the mountains. The spot 
for the shanty is cleared of underbrush ; forked stakes are driven 



6o8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

into the ground, cross-pieces are laid on them, and poles sloping 
back to the ground. In an incredible space of time there is the 
skeleton of a house, which is entirely open in front. The roof and 
sides must be covered. For this purpose the trunks of great spruces 
are skinned. The woodman rims the bark near the foot of the 
tree, and again six feet above, and slashes it perpendicularly ; then, 
with a blunt stick, he crowds off this thick hide exactly as an ox is 
skinned. It needs but a few of these skins to cover the roof ; and 
they make a perfectly water-tight roof, except when it rains. Mean- 
time, busy hands have gathered boughs of the spruce and the 
feathery balsam, and shingled the ground underneath the shanty 
for a bed. It is an aromatic bed : in theory it is elastic and con- 
soling. Upon it are spread the blankets. The sleepers, of all sexes 
and ages, are to lie there in a row, their feet to the fire, and their 
heads under the edge of the sloping roof. Nothing could be better 
contrived. The fire is in front : it is not a fire, but a conflagration 
— a vast heap of green logs set on fire — of pitch, and split dead- 
wood, and crackling balsams, raging and roaring. By the time 
twilight falls, the cook has prepared supper. Everything has been 
cooked in a tin pail and a skillet, — potatoes, tea, pork, mutton, 
slapjacks. You wonder how everything could have been prepared 
in so few utensils. When you eat, the wonder ceases : everything 
might have been cooked in one pail. It is a noble meal ; and 
nobly is it disposed of by these amateur savages, sitting about upon 
logs and roots of trees. Never were there such potatoes, never 
beans that seemed to have more of the bean in them, never such 
curly pork, never trout with more Indian-meal on them, never 
mutton more distinctly sheepy ; and the tea, drunk out of a tin 
cup, with a lump of maple-sugar dissolved in it, — it is the sort of 
tea that takes hold, lifts the hair, and disposes the drinker to anec- 
dote and hilariousness. There is no deception about it : it tastes 
of tannin and spruce and creosote. Everything, in short, has the 
flavor of the wilderness and a free life. It is idyllic. And yet, with 
all our sentimentality, there is nothing feeble about the cooking. 
The slapjacks are a solid job of work, made to last, and not go to 
pieces in a person's stomach like a trivial bun > we might record 
on them, in cuneiform characters, our incipient civilization ; and 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 609 

future generations would doubtless turn them up as Acadian bricks. 
Good, robust victuals are what the primitive man wants. 

Darkness falls suddenly. Outside the ring of light from our 
conflagration the woods are black. There is a tremendous impres- 
sion of isolation and lonesomeness in our situation. We are the 
prisoners of the night. The woods never seemed so vast and 
mysterious. The trees are gigantic. There are noises that we do 
not understand, — mysterious winds passing overhead, and ram- 
bling in the great galleries, tree-trunks grinding against each other, 
undefinable stirs and uneasinesses. The shapes of those who pass 
into the dimness are outlined in monstrous proportions. The 
spectres, seated about in the glare of the fire, talk about appear- 
ances and presentiments and religion. The guides cheer the night 
with bear-fights, and catamount encounters, and frozen-to-death 
experiences, and simple tales of great prolixity and no point, and 
jokes of primitive lucidity. We hear catamounts, and the stealthy 
tread of things in the leaves, and the hooting of owls, and, when 
the moon rises, the laughter of the loon. Everything is strange, 
spectral, fascinating. 

By and by we get our positions in the shanty for the night, and 
arrange the row of sleepers. The shanty has become a smoke- 
house by this time : waves of smoke roll into it from the fire. It 
is only by lying down, and getting the head well under the eaves, 
that one can breathe. No one can find her " things ; " nobody 
has a pillow. At length the row is laid out, with the solemn pro- 
testation of intention to sleep. The wind, shifting, drives away 
the smoke. Good-night is said a hundred times ; positions are re- 
adjusted, more last words, new shifting about, final remarks ; it is 
all so comfortable and romantic ; and then silence. Silence con- 
tinues for a minute. The fire flashes up ; all the row of heads is 
lifted up simultaneously to watch it ; showers of sparks sail aloft 
into the blue night ; the vast vault of greenery is a fairy spectacle. 
How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical 
fire-flies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap their hands ! Some 
of the sparks do not go out : we see them flaming in the sky when 
the flame of the fire has died down. Well, good-night, good-night. 
More folding of the arms to sleep ; more grumbling about the 



Cio READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

hardness of a hand-bag, or the insufficiency of a pocket-handker- 
chief, for a pillow. Good-night. Was that a remark? — something 
about a root, a stub in the ground sticking into the back, "You 
could n't lie along a hair .? " — " Well, no : here 's another stub." 
It needs but a moment for the conversation to become general, — 
about roots under the shoulder, stubs in the back, a ridge on which 
it is impossible for the sleeper to balance, the non-elasticity of 
boughs, the hardness of the ground, the heat, the smoke, the 
chilly air. Subjects of remarks multiply. The whole camp is 
awake, and chattering like an aviary. The owl is also awake ; but 
the guides who are asleep outside make more noise than the owls. 
Water is wanted, and is handed about in a dipper. Everybody is 
yawning ; everybody is now determined to go to sleep in good 
earnest. A last good-night. There is an appalling silence. It is 
interrupted in the most natural way in the world. Somebody has 
got the start, and gone to sleep. He proclaims the fact. He seems 
to have been brought up on the seashore, and to know how to make 
all the deep-toned noises of the restless ocean. He is also like a 
war-horse ; or, it is suggested, like a saw-horse. How malignantly 
he snorts, and breaks off short, and at once begins again in another 
key ! One head is raised after another. 

" Who is that .? " 

" Somebody punch him," 

" Turn him over," 

" Reason with him." 

The sleeper is turned over. The turn was a mistake. He was 
before, it appears, on his most agreeable side. The camp rises in 
indignation. The sleeper sits up in bewilderment. Before he can 
go off again, two or three others have preceded him. They are all 
alike. You can never judge what a person is when he is awake. 
There are here half a dozen disturbers of the peace who should 
be put in solitary confinement. At midnight, when a philosopher 
crawls out to sit on a log by the fire, and smoke a pipe, a duet in 
tenor and mezzo-soprano is going on in the shanty, with a chorus 
always coming in at the wrong time. Those who are not asleep 
want to know why the smoker does n't go to bed. He is requested 
to get some water, to throw on another log, to see what time it is, 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 6ii 

to note whether it looks Hke rain, A buzz of conversation arises. 
She is sure she heard something behind the shanty. He says it is 
all nonsense. " Perhaps, however, it might be a mouse." 

"' Mercy ! Are there mice ? " 

" Plenty." 

'" Then that 's what I heard nibbling by my head. I shan't 
sleep a wink ! Do they bite ? " 

'" No, they nibble ; scarcely ever take a full bite out." 

" It 's horrid ! " 

Towards morning it grows chilly ; the guides have let the fire 
go out ; the blankets will slip down. Anxiety begins to be expressed 
about the dawn. 

'" What time does the sun rise ? " 

" Awful early. Did you sleep ? " 

"' Not a wink. And you .? " 

" In spots. I 'm going to dig up this root as soon as it is light 
enough." 

" See that mist on the lake, and the light just coming on the 
Gothics ! I 'd no idea it was so cold : all the first part of the 
night I was roasted." 

" What were they talking about all night .'' " 

When the party crawls out to the early breakfast, after it has 
washed its faces in the lake, it is disorganized, but cheerful. No- 
body admits much sleep ; but everybody is refreshed, and declares 
it delightful. It is the fresh air all night that invigorates ; or maybe 
it is the tea or the slapjacks. The guides have erected a table of 
spruce bark, with benches at the sides ; so that breakfast is taken 
in form. It is served on tin plates and oak chips. After breakfast 
begins the day's work. It may be a mountain-climbing expedition, 
or rowing and angling in the lake, or fishing for trout in some 
stream two or three miles distant. Nobody can stir far from camp 
without a guide. Hammocks are swung, bowers are built, novel- 
reading begins, worsted work appears, cards are shuffled and dealt. 
The day passes in absolute freedom from responsibility to one's 
self. At night, when the expeditions return, the camp resumes its 
animation. Adventures are recounted, every statement of the nar- 
rator being disputed and argued. Everybody has become an adept 



6i2 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

in wood-craft ; but nobody credits his neighbor with Hke instinct. 
Society getting resolved into its elements, confidence is gone. 

Whilst the hilarious party are at supper, a drop or two of rain 
falls. The head guide is appealed to. Is it going to rain ? He says 
it does rain. But will it be a rainy night .-' The guide goes down 
to the lake, looks at the sky, and concludes that if the wind shifts 
a p'int more, there is no telling what sort of weather we shall have. 
Meantime the drops patter thicker on the leaves overhead, and the 
leaves, in turn, pass the water down to the table ; the sky darkens ; 
the wind rises ; there is a kind of shiver in the woods ; and we 
scud away into the shanty, taking the remains of our supper, and 
eating it as best we can. The rain increases. The fire sputters 
and fumes. All the trees are dripping, dripping, and the ground 
is wet. We cannot step out-doors without getting a drenching. 
Like sheep, we are penned in the little hut, where no one can stand 
erect. The rain swirls into the open front, and wets the bottom 
of the blankets. The smoke drives in. We curl up, and enjoy 
ourselves. The guides at length conclude that it is going to be 
damp. The dismal situation sets us all into good spirits ; and it is 
later than the night before when we crawl under our blankets, sure 
this time of a sound sleep, lulled by the storm and the rain resound- 
ing on the bark roof. How much better off we are than many 
a shelterless wretch ! We are as snug as dry herrings. At the 
moment, however, of dropping off to sleep, somebody unfortunately 
notes a drop of water on his face ; this is followed by another drop ; 
in an instant a stream is established. He moves his head to a dry 
place. Scarcely has he done so, when he feels a dampness in his 
back. Reaching his hand outside, he finds a puddle of water soak- 
ing through his blanket. By this time, somebody inquires if it is 
possible that the roof leaks. One man has a stream of water under 
him ; another says it is coming into his ear. The roof appears to 
be a discriminating sieve. Those who are dry see no need of such 
a fuss. The man in the corner spreads his umbrella, and the pro- 
tective measure is resented by his neighbor. In the darkness there 
is recrimination. One of the guides, who is summoned, suggests 
that the rubber blankets be passed out, and spread over the roof. 
The inmates dislike the proposal, saying that a shower-bath is no 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 613 

worse than a tub-bath. The rain continues to soak down. The fire 
is only half alive. The bedding is damp. Some sit up, if they can 
find a dry spot to sit on, and smoke. Heartless observations are 
made. A few sleep. And the night wears on. The morning opens 
cheerless. The sky is still leaking, and so is the shanty. The 
guides bring in a half-cooked breakfast. The roof is patched up. 
There are reviving signs of breaking away, delusive signs that create 
momentary exhilaration. Even if the storm clears, the woods are 
soaked. There is no chance of stirring. The world is only ten 
feet square. 

This life, without responsibility or clean clothes, may continue 
as long as the reader desires. There are those who would like to 
live in this free fashion forever, taking rain and sun as heaven 
pleases ; and there are some souls so constituted that they cannot 
exist more than three days without their worldly baggage. Taking 
the party altogether, from one cause or another it is likely to strike 
camp sooner than was intended. And the stricken camp is a 
melancholy sight. The woods have been despoiled ; the stumps 
are ugly ; the bushes are scorched ; the pine-leaf-strewn earth is 
trodden into mire ; the landing looks like a cattle-ford ; the ground 
is littered with all the unsightly debris of a hand-to-hand life ; the 
dismantled shanty is a shabby object ; the charred and blackened 
logs, where the fire blazed, suggest the extinction of family life. 
Man has wrought his usual wrong upon Nature, and he can save 
his self-respect only by moving to virgin forests. 

And move to them he will, the next season, if not this. For 
he who has once experienced the fascination of the woods-life 
never escapes its enticement : in the memory nothing remains but 
its charm. 



6l4 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 

[Born at Hartford, Connecticut, October 8, 1 833 ; died in New York, 
January 18, 1908] 

PAN IN WALL STREET 

Just where the Treasury's marble front 

Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations ; 
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont 

To throng for trade and last quotations ; 
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold 

Outrival, in the ears of people, 
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled 

From Trinity's undaunted steeple, — 

Even then I heard a strange, wild strain 

Sound high above the modern clamor, 
Above the cries of greed and gain. 

The curbstone war, the auction's hammer ; 
And swift, on Music's misty ways. 

It led, from all this strife for millions, 
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days 

Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians. 

And as it stilled the multitude. 

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, 
I saw the minstrel, where he stood 

At ease against a Doric pillar : 
One hand a droning organ played. 

The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned 
Like those of old) to lips that made 

The reeds give out that strain impassioned. 

'T was Pan himself had wandered here 

A-strolling through this sordid city, 
And piping to the civic ear 

The prelude of some pastoral ditty ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 615 

The demigod had crossed the seas, — 

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, 

And Syracusan times, — to these 

Far shores and twenty centuries later. 

A ragged cap was on his head ; 

But — hidden thus — there was no doubting 
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread, 

His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting ; 
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes, 

Were crossed, as in some frieze you see them, 
And trousers, patched of divers hues. 

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them. 

He filled the quivering reeds with sound, 

And o'er his mouth their changes shifted, 
And with his goat's-eyes looked around 

Where'er the passing current drifted ; 
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills 

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him. 
Even now the tradesmen from their tills. 

With clerks and porters crowded near him. 

The bulls and bears together drew 

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, 
As erst, if pastorals be true. 

Came beats from every wooded valley ; 
The random passers stayed to list — 

A boxer Aegon, rough and merry, 
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst 

With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry. 

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long 

In tattered cloak of army pattern. 
And Galatea joined the throng, — 

A blowsy, apple-vending slattern ; 



6i6 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

While old Silenus staggered out 

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, 

And bade the piper, with a shout, 
To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy ! 

A newsboy and a peanut-girl 

Like little Fauns began to caper : 
His hair was all in tangled curl, 

Her tawny legs were bare and taper ; 
And still the gathering larger grew. 

And gave its pence and crowded nigher, 
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew 

His pipe, and struck the gamut higher. 

O heart of Nature, beating still 

With throbs her vernal passion taught her, — 
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill, 

Or by the Arethusan water ! 
New forms may fold the speech, new lands 

Arise within these ocean portals. 
But Music waves eternal wands, — 

Enchantress of the souls of mortals ! 

So thought I, — but among us trod 

A man in blue, with legal baton, 
And scoffed the vagrant demigod. 

And pushed him from the step I sat on. 
Doubting I mused upon the cry, 

" Great Pan is dead ! " — and all the people 
Went on their ways : — and clear and high 

The quarter sounded from the steeple. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 617 



EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 

[Born at Windsor, Connecticut, 1841 ; died at Cleveland, Ohio, 
February 27, 1887] 

THE FOOL'S PRAYER 

The royal feast was done ; the King 
Sought some new sport to banish care, 

And to his jester cried : " Sir Fool, 

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer ! " 

The jester doffed his cap and bells. 
And stood the mocking court before ; 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 

He bowed his head, and bent his knee 
Upon the monarch's silken stool ; 

His pleading voice arose : " O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

" No pity, Lord, could change the heart 
From red with wrong to white as wool : 

The rod must heal the sin ; but. Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

" 'T is not by guilt the onward sweep 
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay ; 

*T is by our follies that so long 

We hold the earth from heaven away. 

" These clumsy feet, still in the mire. 
Go crushing blossoms without end ; 

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
Among the heart-strings of a friend. 



6i8 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept — 
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ! 

The word we had not sense to say — 
Who knows how grandly it had rung ! 

" Our faults no tenderness should ask, 

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all ; 

But for our blunders — oh, in shame 
Before the eyes of heaven we fall. 

" Earth bears no balsam for mistakes ; 

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool 
That did his will ; but thou, O Lord, 

Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 

The room was hushed ; in silence rose 
The King and sought his gardens cool, 

And walked apart, and murmured low, 
" Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 



JOAQUIN MILLER 

[Born in Indiana, November lo, 1841 ; died in California, February 17, 191 3] 
CROSSING THE PLAINS 

What great yoked brutes with briskets low. 
With wrinkled necks like buffalo, 
With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes, . 
That turned so slow and sad to you, 
That shone like love's eyes soft with tears. 
That seemed to plead, and make replies, 
The while they bowed their necks and drew 
The creaking load ; and looked at you. 
Their sable briskets swept the ground, 
Their cloven feet kept solemn sound. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 619 

Two sullen bullocks led the line, 
Their great eyes shining bright like wine ; 
Two sullen captive kings were they, 
That had in time held herds at bay. 
And even now they crushed the sod 
With stolid sense of majesty, 
And stately stepped and stately trod, 
As if it were something still to be 
Kings even in captivity. 

BY THE PACIFIC OCEAN 

Here room and kingly silence keep • 
Companionship in state austere ; 
The dignity of death is here, 
The large, lone vastness of the deep , 
Here toil has pitched his camp to rest : 
The west is banked against the west. 

Above yon gleaming skies of gold 
One lone imperial peak is seen ; 
While gathered at his feet in green 
Ten thousand foresters are told ; 
And all so still ! so still the air 
That duty drops the web of care. 

Beneath the sunset's golden sheaves 
The awful deep walks with the deep. 
Where silent sea doves slip and sweep, 
And commerce keeps her loom and weaves, 
The dead red men refuse to rest ; 
Their ghosts illume my lurid West. 

COLUMBUS 

Behind him lay the gray Azores, 

Behind the Gates of Hercules ; 
Before him not the ghost of shores, 

Before him only shoreless seas. 



620 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

The good mate said : " Now must we pray, 
For lo ! the very stars are gone. 

Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say ? " 
" Why, say, ' Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! ' " 

" My men grow mutinous day by day ; 

My men grow ghastly wan and weak." 
The stout mate thought of home ; a spray 

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. 
" What shall I say, brave Admiral, say. 

If we sight naught but seas at dawn ? " 
" Why you shall say at break of day, 

' Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! ' " 

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, 

Until at last the blanched man said : 
" Why, now not even God would know 

Should I and all my men fall dead. 
Those very winds forget their way, 

For God from these dread seas is gone, 
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say " — 

He said : " Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " 

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate 

" This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. 
He curls his lip, he lies in wait. 

With lifted teeth, as if to bite ! 
Brave Admiral, say but one good word : 

What shall we do when hope is gone .'' " 
The words leaped like a leaping sword : 

" Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " 

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck, 

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night 

Of all dark nights ! And then a speck — 
A light ! A light ! A light ! A light ! 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 621 

It grew, a starlit flag unfurled ! 

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. 
He gained a world ; he gave that world 

Its grandest lesson : " On ! sail on ! " 



EMILY DICKINSON 

[Born at Amherst, Massachusetts, December 10, 1830; died at 
Amherst, May 15, 1886] 

THE HUMMING-BIRD 1 

A route of evanescence 
With a revolving wheel ; 
A resonance of emerald, 
A rush of cochineal ; 
And every blossom on the bush 
Adjusts its tumbled head, — 
The mail from Tunis, probably. 
An easy morning's ride. 

OUT OF THE MORNING 1 

Will there really be a morning ? 
Is there such a thing as day ? 
Could I see it from the mountains 
If I were as tall as they ? 

Has it feet like water-lilies ? 
Has it feathers like a bird ? 
Is it brought from famous countries 
Of which I have never heard ? 

Oh, some scholar ! Oh, some sailor ! 
Oh, some wise man from the skies ! 
Please to tell a little pilgrim 
Where the place called morning lies ! 

1 From the poems of Emily Dickinson. Copyright, 1891, by Roberts Brothers. 



622 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



CHARTLESS 



I never saw a moor, 

I never saw the sea ; 

Yet know I how the heather looks, 

And what a wave must be. 

I never spoke with God, 
Nor visited in heaven ; 
Yet certain am I of the spot 
As if the chart were given. 



THE ROBIN 1 

The robin is the one 
That interrupts the morn 
With hurried, few, express reports 
When March is scarcely on. 

The robin is the one 
That overflows the noon 
With her cherubic quantity, 
An April but begun. 

The robin is the one 
That speechless from her nest 
Submits that home and certainty 
And sanctity are best. 



IN THE GARDEN! 

A bird came down the walk : 
He did not know I saw ; 
He bit an angle-worm in halves 
And ate the fellow, raw. 

1 From the Poems of Emily Dickinson. Copyright, 1891, by Roberts Brothers. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 623 

And then he drank a dew 

From a convenient grass, 

And then hopped sidewise to the wall 

To let a beetle pass. 

He glanced with rapid eyes 

That hurried all abroad, — 

They looked like frightened beads, I thought ; 

He stirred his velvet head 

Like one in danger ; cautious, 
I offered him a crumb. 
And he unrolled his feathers 
And rowed him softer home 

Than oars divide the ocean. 
Too silver for a seam, 
Or butterflies, off banks of noon. 
Leap, plashless, as they swim. 



AUTUMN 1 

The morns are meeker than they were. 

The nuts are getting brown ; 

The berry's cheek is plumper. 

The rose is out of town. 

The maple wears a gayer scarf. 

The field a scarlet gown. 

Lest I should be old-fashioned, 

I '11 put a trinket on. 

1 From the Poems of Emily Dickinson. Copyright, 1S90, by Roberts Brothers. 



624 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

IF I CAN STOP ONE HEART FROM BREAKING ^ 

If I can stop one heart from breaking, 

I shall not live in vain ; 

If I can ease one life the aching, 

Or cool one pain, 

Or help one fainting robin 

Into his nest again, 

I shall not live in vain. 



EUGENE FIELD 

[Born at St. Louis, Missouri, September 2, 1850; died at Chicago, 
November 4, 1895] 

WYNKEN, BLYNKEN, AND NOD 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night 

Sailed off in a wooden shoe, — 
Sailed on a river of crystal light 

Into a sea of dew. 
" Where are you going, and what do you wish ? " 

The old moon asked the three. 
" We have come to fish for the herring fish 
That live in this beautiful sea ; 
Nets of silver and gold have we," 
Said Wynken, 
Blynken, 
And Nod. 

The old moon laughed and sang a song, 
As they rocked in the wooden shoe ; 

And the wind that sped them all night long 
Ruffled the waves of dew ; 

The little stars were the herring-fish 
That lived in the beautiful sea. 

1 From the Poems of Emily Dickinson. Copyright, 1890, by Roberts Brothers. 



I 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD —MINOR WRITERS 625 

" Now cast your nets wherever you wish, — 
Never af eared are we ! " 
So cried the stars to the fishermen three, 

Wynken, 

Blynken, 

And Nod. 

All night long their nets they threw 

To the stars in the twinkling foam, — 
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe, 

Bringing the fishermen home : 
'T was all so pretty a sail, it seemed 

As if it could not be ; 
And some folks thought 't was a dream they 'd dreamed 
Of sailing that beautiful sea ; 
But I shall name you the fishermen three : 
Wynken, 
Blynken, 
And Nod. 

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes, 

And Nod is a little head. 
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies 

Is a wee one's trundle-bed ; 
So shut your eyes while Mother sings 

Of wonderful sights that be. 
And you shall see the beautiful things 
As you rock on the misty sea 
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three, — 
Wynken, 
Blynken, 
And Nod. 



626 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

LITTLE BOY BLUE 

The little toy dog is covered with dust, 

But sturdy and stanch he stands ; 
And the little toy soldier is red with rust, 

And his musket moulds in his hands. 
Time was when the little toy dog was new. 

And the soldier was passing fair ; 
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue 

Kissed them and put them there. 

"' Now, don't you go till I come," he said, 

" And don't you make any noise ! " 
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed, 

He dreamt of the pretty toys. 
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song 

Awakened our Little Boy Blue — 
Oh ! the years are many, the years are long. 

But the little toy friends are true ! 

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand. 

Each in the same old place. 
Awaiting the touch of a little hand. 

The smile of a little face ; 
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through 

In the dust of that little chair. 
What has become of our Little Boy Blue, 

Since he kissed them and put them there. 

IN THE FIRELIGHT 

The fire upon the hearth is low, 
And there is stillness everywhere, 
And, like winged spirits, here and there 

The firelight shadows fluttering go. 

And as the shadows round me creep, 
A childish treble breaks the gloom. 
And softly from a further room 

Comes : "' Now I lay me down to sleep." 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 627 

And, somehow, with that little prayer 

And that sweet treble in my ears, 

My thoughts go back to distant years, 
And linger with a dear one there ; 
And as I hear my child's amen, 

My mother's faith comes back to me, — 

Crouched at her side I seem to be, 
And mother holds my hands again. 

Oh for an hour in that dear place, 

Oh for the peace of that dear time, 

Oh for that childish trust sublime, 
Oh for a glimpse of mother's face ! 
Yet, as the shadows round me creep, 

I do not seem to be alone — 

Sweet magic of that treble tone 
And "Now I lay me down to sleep ! " 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

[Born at Greenfield, Indiana, 1854] 
WHEN SHE COMES HOMEi 

When she comes home again ! A thousand ways 

I fashion, to myself, the tenderness 

Of my glad welcome : I shall tremble — yes ; 

And touch her, as when first in the old days 

I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise 

Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress. 

Then silence : and the perfume of her dress : 

The room will sway a little, and a haze 

Cloy eyesight — soulsight, even — for a space ; 

To know that I so ill deserve the place 

Her arms make for me ; and the sobbing note 

I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face 

Again is hidden in the old embrace. 

1 From " Poems Here at Home "by James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright, 1893, The Bobbs- 
Merrill Company. 



628 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE RAGGEDY MAN ^ 

O the Raggedy Man ! He works fer Pa ; 
An' he 's the goodest man ever you saw ! 
He comes to our house every day, 
An' waters the horses, an' feeds 'em hay ; 
An' he opens the shed — an' we all ist laugh 
When he drives out our little old wobble-ly calf ; 
An' nen — ef our hired girl says he can — 
He milks the cow fer 'Lizabuth Ann. — 
Ain't he a' awful good Raggedy Man ? 
Raggedy ! Raggedy ! Raggedy Man ! 

W'y, the Raggedy Man — he 's ist so good, 
He splits the kindlin' an' chops the wood ; 
An' nen he spades in our garden, too, 
An' does most things 'at boys can't do. — 
He clumbed clean up in our big tree 
An' shook a' apple down fer me — 
An' 'nother, too, fer 'Lizabuth Ann — 
An' 'nother, too, fer the Raggedy Man. — 
Ain't he a' awful kind Raggedy Man ? 
Raggedy ! Raggedy ! Raggedy Man ! 

An' the Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes, 
An' tells 'em ef I be good, sometimes : 
Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves, 
An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers theirselves ! 
An' wite by the pump in our pasture-lot, 
He showed me the hole 'at the VVunks is got, 
'At lives 'way deep in the ground, 'an can 
Turn into me, er 'Lizabuth Ann ! 
Ain't he a funny old Raggedy Man ? 
Raggedy ! Raggedy ! Raggedy Man ! 

1 From " Rhymes of Childhood " by James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright, 1900, The 
Bobbs-Merrill Company. 



LATER NATIONAL PERIOD — MINOR WRITERS 629 

The Raggedy Man — one time, when he 
Wuz makin' a httle bow'-n'-orry fer me, 
Says, "' When you 're big Hke your Pa is 
Air you go' to keep a fine store Hke his — 
An' be a rich merchunt — an' wear fine clothes? — 
Er what air you go' to be, goodness knows ? " 
An' nen he laughed at 'Lizabuth Ann, 
An' I says, " 'M go' to be a nice Raggedy Man ! " 
Raggedy ! Raggedy ! Raggedy Man ! 



THE DAYS GONE BY 1 

Oh, the days gone by ! Oh, the days gone by ! 

The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye ; 

The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail 

As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale ; 

When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky. 

And my happy heart brimmed over, in the days gone by. 

In the days gone by, when my naked feet were tripped. 
By the honeysuckle's tangles, where the water lilies dipped. 
And the ripple of the river lipped the moss along the brink, 
Where the placid-eyed and lazy-footed cattle came to drink. 
And the tilting snipe stood fearless of the truant's wayward cry, 
And the splashing of the swimmer, in the days gone by. 

Oh, the days gone by ! Oh, the days gone by ! 
The music of the laughing lip, the lustre of the eye ; 
The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin's magic ring, 
The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything. 
When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, 
In the olden, golden glory of the days gone by. 

1 From " Rhymes of Childhood " by James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright, 1900, The 
Bobbs-Merrill Company. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Adams, Samuel, ii8 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 602 

Barlow, Joel, 147 
Beverley, Robert, 74 
Bradford, William, 8 
Bradstreet, Anne, 33 
Brown, Charles Brockden, 167 
Bryant, William Cullen, 239 
Byrd, William, 79 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 225 
Cotton, John, 25 

Dickinson, Emily, 621 
Drake, Joseph Rodman, 177 
Dwight, Timothy, 141 

Edwards, Jonathan, 83 
Eliot, John, 44 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 316 
Evans, Nathaniel, 112 

Field, Eugene, 624 
Franklin, Benjamin, 92 
Freneau, Philip, 135 

Godfrey, Thomas, no 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 182 
Hamilton, Alexander, 129 
Harte, Francis Bret, 601 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 352 
Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 598 
Henry, Patrick, 120 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 480 

Irving, Washington, 186 



Jefferson, Thomas, 125 
Johnson, Edward, 39 

Lanier, Sidney, 5S4 
Lincoln, Abraham, 291 

Mather, Cotton, 59 
Miller, Joaquin, 618 
Motley, John Lothrop, 301 

Otis, James, 119 

Paine, Thomas, 130 
Parkman, Francis, 312 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 254 
Prescott, William Hickling, 294 

Riley, James Whitcomb, 627 
Roulandson, Mary, 56 

Sewall, Samuel, 66 

Sill, Edward Rowland, 617 

Smith, John, i 

Taylor, Bayard, 591 
Thoreau, Henry, 507 
Timrod, Henry, 594 
Trumbull, John, 141 
Tucker, St. George, 152 
Tyler, Royall, 159 

Ward, Nathaniel, 28 
Warner, Charles Dudley, 603 
Washington, George, 123 
Webster, Daniel, 276 
Whitman, Walt, 573 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 435 
Wigglesworth, Michael, 47 
Winthrop, John, 18 
Woolman, John, 115 



631 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Abraham Lincoln, 551 

Additional Alphabet Verses, 91 

Aladdin, 520 

Almanacs, The, 92 

America, 593 

American Flag, The, 180 

Amyntor, 1 1 1 

Anecdote of Dr. Franklin, An, 127 

Annabel Lee, 258 

April, 322 

Aspects of the Pines, 598 

At Magnolia Cemetery, 597 

Attack by Indians, 56 

Author to her Book, The, 38 

Autobiography, The (Extracts), Benja- 
min Franklin, 1 00 

Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The, 
490 

Autumn, 623 

Bacon's Death, 51 

Bacon's Epitaph, made by his Man, 52 

Ballad of Nathan Hale, The, 156 

Ballad of Trees and the Master, A, 586 

Barefoot Boy, The, 442 

Battle of the Kegs, The, 153 

Battle of Trenton, 158 

Bedouin Song, 591 

Bells, The, 260 

Birds of Killingworth, The, 380 

Boys, The, 482 

Bunker Hill Address, The (Extracts), 

276 
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame, 574 
By the Pacific Ocean, 619 

Camping Out, 603 

Capture of Pocahontas, The, 5 

Chambered Nautilus, The, 488 

Chartless, 622 

Chief Events during the years 1749 to 

1753. "5 
Chief Justice in Search of a Wife, A, 

69 
Christmas Day in Boston, 67 



Christmas Pastimes (1622), 14 

Coliseum, The, 267 

Colonial Wedding, A, 68 

Columbia, 146 

Columbus, 619 

Columbus addresses King Ferdinand, 

135 
Columbus in Chains, 136 
Come up from the Fields, Father, 577 
Compact of the Pilgrims, The, 1 1 
Concord Hymn, The, 316 
Conqueror Worm, The, 268 
Conquest of Mexico, The (Extracts), 

294 
Contrast, The, A Comedy in Five 

Acts, 159 
Converting a Tory, 141 
Conviviality in the Colonies, 81 
Courtin', The, 525 
Crossing the Plains, 618 

Darest Thou Now, O Soul, 579 

Day of Doom, The, 47 

Days Gone By, The, 629 

Days of my Youth, 152 

Deacon's Masterpiece, The, or the 

Wonderful " One-Hoss Shay," 484 
Death of the Flowers, The, 243 
Death of Lincoln, The, 248 
Death's Epitaph, 137 
Defence of Persecution, A, 25 
Dentistry in Primitive Days, 81 
Discipline at Harvard, 66 
Dutiful Child's Promises, The, 90 

Each and All, 320 

Early Trials of the Pilgrim Fathers 

(1620), 12 
Election in the Colonial Times, An, 18 
Enchanter, The, 324 
Endymion, 376 
Eternal Goodness, The, 449 
Evangeline, 394 
Exploring Cape Cod, 15 
Extracts from Edwards's Diary, 83 



633 



634 READINGS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Fable, 323 

Family Discipline, 68 

Famine, The, 430 

Farewell Sermon, A (Extracts), Jona- 
than Eihvards, 85 

Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother, 
The, 436 

Fay's Sentence, The, 177 

First Snow-Fall, The, 519 

Fool's Prayer, The, 617 

Footsteps of Angels, 368 

Foppery of Titles, The, 132 

For the Restoration of my Dear Hus- 
band from a Burning Ague, June, 
1661, 38 

Forbearance, 323 

Franklin's Early Interest in Books, 100 

Gettysburg Speech, The, 291 
Good-bye, 319 
Good Children Must, 91 
Governor Wouter Van Twiller, 186 
Gray Champion, The, 352 
Grizzly, 601 

Hasty Pudding, The, 147 

Haunted Palace, The, 259 

Her Experiences in Captivity, I\Iaiy 

Rotolajidson, 56 
Hiawatha's Childhood, 423 
Humble-bee, The, 317 
Humming-bird, The, 621 
Hush'd be the Camps To-day, 576 
Hymn to the Night, 370 

Ichabod, 438 

I Hear America Singing, 573 

If I Can Stop One Heart from Break- 
ing, 624 

In the Firelight, 626 

In the Garden, 622 

In Praise of Anne Bradstreet, 33 

In School-days, 447 

Inaugural Address, as President of the 
United States, March 4, iSoi (Ex- 
tracts), Jhonuis Jefferson, 125 

Indian Burying-ground, The, 138 

Indian Courtesies, 17 

Indians in New England, 44 

Infant's Grace before and after Meat, 
The, 91 

Inhabitants of Virginia, 74 

Interior of the Alhambra, 219 

Israfel, 265 

Items from Winthrop's History cover- 
ing Period from 1631-1648, 19 



Jesuits in North America in the Seven- 
teenth Century, The, 312 

King Robert of Sicily, 388 

Landing of the Pilgrims, The, 16 

Last Leaf, The, 481 

Last of the Mohicans, The, 225 

Laus Deo ! 452 

Learn These Four Lines by Heart, 91 

Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The, 190 

Letter to his Wife upon being made 

Commander-in-Chief of the Army, 

Geo7\i^e Washington, 124 
Letters of John Winthrop and his Third 

Wife, Margaret, 23 
Liberty Tree, 134 
Light of Stars, The, 367 
Little Boy Blue, 626 
Little While I Fain Would Linger Yet, 

A, 599 
Longmg, 521 
Love-Letter to her Husband, A, Anne 

Bradstreet, 36 
Lovewell's Fight : A Popular Ballad, 53 

Maidenhood, 377 
Marco Bozzaris, 183 
Marshes of Glynn, The, 586 
Masque of the Red Death, The, 269 
May Sun Sheds an Amber Light, The, 

253 
Mourt's Relation, 15 
My Love, 515 
My Playmate, 456 
My Triumph, 454 

Noiseless, Patient Spider, A, 576 
North Carolina Farming, 79 
Notes on the Witchcraft Trials, 67 

O Captain! My Captain! 574 

O Fairest of the Rural Maids, 244 

Ode to my Ingenious Friend, Mr. 
Thomas Godfrey, 114 

Ode recited at the Harvard Commemo- 
ration, July 21, 1865, 539 

Of the First Preparation of the Mer- 
chant Adventurers in the Massachu- 
setts, 39 

Of the First Promotion of Learning in 
New England, and the Extraordinary 
Providences that the Lord was pleased 
to send for furthering the same, 40 

Of the I'^our Ages of Man, 35 

Old Ironsides, 480 



INDEX OF TITLES 



635 



On American Independence (Extract), 
118 

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake, 
182 

On the Expediency of Adopting the 
Federal Constitution (Extracts), 129 

On the Separation of Britain and Amer- 
ica, 130 

On the Writs of Assistance (Extract), 
119 

Origin of Witchcraft in New England, 
The, 59 

Out of the Morning, 621 

Pan in Wall Street, 614 

Pastimes in Virginia, 76 

Pictures of Columbus, The, 135 

Pilgrims leave Leyden, The (1620), 8 

Planting of the Apple-Tree, The, 251 

Pocahontas Story, The, 3 

Poem on the Reverend Thomas Hooker, 

27 
Proem to the First Edition of his Col- 
lected Works,y6i//« GreenleafH7iiitier, 

435 
Prologue, The, 33 
Prologue. The Contrast, 160 
Psalm of Life, A, 366 

Raggedy Man, The, 628 
Rainy Day, The, 376 
Raven, The, 254 
Reflections on Slavery, 68 
Resolutions formed in Early Life (Ex- 
tracts), 83 
Rhodora, The, 316 
Rill from the Town-Pump, A, 360 
Rise of the Dutch Republic, The, 301 
Robert of Lincoln, 248 
Robin, The, 622 
Runaway Slaves in Hiding, 80 

Sarah Pierrepont, afterward his Wife, 

84 
Scandal among the Converts, 44 
Second Quest, The, 179 
Seeking his Fortune, 104 
Self-reliance, 328 
Serenade from "The Spanish Student," 

379 
Servants and Slaves in Virginia, 78 
She Came and Went, 517 
Sight in Camp in the Day-break Grey 

and Dim, A, 575 
Skeleton in Armor, The, 371 



Skipper Ireson's Ride, 439 

Sleep, 380 

Snow-bound, 458 

Snow-storm, The, 321 

Solitude, 507 

Some of the Evidence given at the 

Witch Trials, 61 
Song of the Camp, The, 592 
Song of the Chattahoochee, 584 
Song of Marion's Men, 245 
Sonnet, 522 
Speech in Congress on his being made 

Commander-in-Chief, June 16, 1775. 

George IVashingtoti., 123 
Speech in the Convention of Delegates, 

March 28, 1775 (Extracts), Patrick 

Henry, 120 
Spring,' 595 

Storm in the Distance, A, 600 
Sun-Day Hymn, A, 489 

Telling the Bees, 445 

Thanatopsis, 239 

To the Dandelion, 517 

To the Fringed Gentian, 242 

To Helen, 264 

To a Honey Bee, 140 

To the Man-of-War-Bird, 577 

To May, 112 

To One in Paradise, 264 

To a Waterfowl, 241 

Tribute to France, A, 128 

Verses, 90 

Vision of Sir Launfal, The, 528 
Voiceless, The, 490 
Voluntaries, 327 

Way to Wealth, The, 93 

What Mr. Robinson Thinks, 523 

When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard 

Bloom'd, 580 
When She Comes Home, 627 
When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan, 

602 
Wieland's Defence, 167 
Wild Honeysuckle, The, 139 
Wish, The, 1 10 
Women's Fashions, 28 
Woodnotes (Selections), 324 
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, 624 



Yellow Violet, The, 247 
Youthful Exuberance on the 
flower," 15 



May- 



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TWO NOTABLE 
HISTORIES OF LITERATURE 

By William J. Long, Ph.D. (Heidelberg) 

Dr. Long's " English Literature " and "American Literature " are 
among the most scholarly and readable manuals of literary history avail- 
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our Recent Literature. The chapters parallel Long's " English Literature " 
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ENGLISH POETRY (1170-1892) 

Selected by JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY, Professor and Head of the Depart- 
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4to, cloth, xxviii + 580 pages, ^1.50 

"V TO other single volume equal in range and price to Manly's "English 
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